The One Where Stephen King Sends Me a Message of Grace

"It don't matter if you believe in God; Nick, he believes in you.” Mother Abigail From "The Stand" by Stephen King

Every now and then I've read a book where I finish it and think, "Wow! What did I just read!?!" Stephen King's "The Stand" is one of those books. I read it the first time in 1986 when I was 25 years old and have read it once a year ever since. 

Not to turn this post into book report assignment for Junior High English, it is the story of how the world nearly ends when a deadly strain of influenza gets out of a military facility in the southwest. The virus is estimated to be fatal in 94% of the cases. "The Stand" is the story of the survivors and what happens to them. 

One of my favorite characters in the book is Nick Andros who is deaf and mute, and through a series of events and dreams ends up in Hemingford Home, Nebraska at the home of Mother Abigail who has been chosen by God to make the stand against evil. Mother Abigail has a deep and abiding belief in God.  Her very essence radiates her love for and belief in God. She is 108 years old. 

Nick does not believe in God. His life has not been easy. His father died before he was born; prenatal trauma has left him deaf and mute; his mother dies when his still a young boy; he ends up in orphanage where he is tormented and abused by the other children there. If you want to know Nick's journey, read the book.  Really, it's a good one. 

Mother Abigail has told Nick that God has his finger on him among others to lead in the stand. Nick conveys to her that he does not believe in her God knowing he could hurt or anger her by telling her this. Instead she looks at him kindly and says the quote I used to start this post. 

Mother Abigail could have said the same to me. 

I compare my ongoing journey to God to the board game my sister and I used to play called "Chutes and Ladders." By shaking a die, we'd move our game pieces closer to the top of the board to be the winner. Along the way there were ladders which could bring us closer to the top and closer to winning. However, there were also chutes (like slides) and landing on one of those would bring us down toward the start of the game. The closer we got to the top, the shorter the ladders became and the longer were the chutes the bottom.
Like the game, through the years, the closer I felt I was finding God's grace, I would land on a chute and sometimes I would end up only a little bit away from Him--usually though it would be down the long slide, and I would feel very far away.  Sometimes I didn't even want to roll the die any longer I was done. Like my sister, who didn't want me to stop playing with her, God didn't want me to stop moving towards Him.  It didn't matter if I didn't think I believed in God, He believed in me. The closer I came to accepting that God wasn't giving up on me, the more I continued on the journey toward the top of the board to be with him.
I still have times when I slide down the chutes, but the slides downward are shorter. There aren't many ladders up, but there don't need to be because I need to make the journey in short steady steps.  The Covenant Group helps me to continue moving towards finding that grace.
Stephen King is probably not the first writer anyone would think of when asked to think of a writer who has moved you on a spiritual journey. However, that one phrase, "he believes in you" was the start of a 30 plus year journey of finding my way to Him.

Till next time. . .welcome to my neighborhood. 

In-Laws and Outlaws

I have the best in-laws in the world. Unfortunately they are from my ex-husband's family. When I go home to Wisconsin, I make sure to make time for lunch with any of the Riemer Family who have the time to see me.  I get to catch up on babies, marriages, divorces, engagements and all of the other family fun.  I fill them in on my life on Long Island, my job etc.

My mother believes that I should cut the ties to my ex-husband's family, and I can always sense her disapproval when I mention that I'm seeing them or stay in contact. Mostly now the contact is through FB, but it's more contact than I have with the long suffering Jim's brother and sister and their families. The nicest thing one of my Riemer nieces said to me was, "You'll always be my Aunt Diane."

I'll never get to be a mother-in-law, it's just the way things worked out. I hope I would use the lessons I learned from both of my mothers-in-law or is it mother-in-laws, or how about the mothers of my husbands.

Lessons from the mothers of my husbands

1. Keep your opinion to yourself (unless asked). I know you're dying to share it with someone so share it with yourself.  You're the only one who wants to hear it. Really just shut it!
2. Unless the kids look like they are starving, physically or mentally abused, they are being raised just fine. 
3. Just because the nutrition guide says a child needs 5 fruits and vegetables per day, if the two year old is screaming for ham at Christmas dinner, just give him the damn ham. 
4. Saying "Thank you" is never wrong.
5. Religion or lack there of is a personal choice. Your religion isn't my religion but neither one of us is wrong. 
6. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's stupid. 
7. When you're too busy minding your own business, you don't have time to be in your in-laws business. 
8. You can freeze butter so stock up when it's on sale. 
9. Pantyhose that didn't fit are never to be regifted--EVER! (Seriously, one year I got pantyhose for Christmas because ex-husband's mother she tried them on, and they were too big for her so she wrapped them up and gave them to me. It's one of my favorite horrible Christmas gift stories ever.)

Both of my mothers-in-law and one father-in-law have passed away.  I love them all, and I miss them all.

Just a thought on the current in-laws

I just barely have a relationship with Jim's sister and none at all with his brother. It's not just me, they don't communicate with Jim either. It's not from lack of trying on either of our parts. They just don't include us as family. Jim's sister, brother, spouses and children get together on holidays, and we aren't invited.  I used to cry about this A LOT! Then last year, Jim's brother informed me that I had an unrealistic ideal of families, and I should just get over it! I was furiously angry for a very long time. It made my stomach hurt how angry I was. Then I was hurt and held on to that grudge for a long time. That kept me from sleeping at night. After an Adult Sunday School session on forgiveness, I decided they are all forgiven, but I'm not putting myself out there to be slapped in the face figuratively or literally any longer. Besides, what am I missing out on?  Not much seriously.  Jim's sister-in-law has always given me the impression that I'm that dog poo on her shoe that she just can't quite rinse off. Jim's brother no longer gives us the time of day.  Jim's sister and I communicate about Jim's father and that is about it. 

Now I've made a family on Long Island with Jim and our dear friends. It's all good. 

Till next time. . .

Things I Wonder About--Part 1

Sheldon Cooper: I'm not insane, my mother had me tested. 


Leonard Hofstetter: I'm not being weird. Am I being weird?

Sheldon Cooper: Yes, and that's coming from me.

I have lots of random things I wonder about. This is one of them.

• Does Jesus hate having his birthday on Christmas? 

          First of all for you scholarly purists, I am fully aware that Jesus was probably born sometime in March and not on December 25.

          My friend from college, Kim hated Christmas for a long time because she was born on December 25. She came from a fairly large family, 2 sisters, 2 brothers and Kim.  She grew up with sisters and brothers who each had their own birthday parties with cake, presents, friends, cards in the mail etc. Kim, on the other hand had to share her birthday with the One who is the foundation of all Christian religions so she didn't have a party, cake, birthday presents, birthday cards in the mail etc. She had Christmas/birthday presents, Christmas dinner, Christmas cards, annoying relatives and maybe a few for her and her alone birthday cards. Her friends were all with their families that day so she really felt her birthday was an after thought.

        Finally as an adult her husband gave her a birthday party on June 25. She had it all cake, presents, friends, cards, the party--a day all about her. I was there for awhile it was fun, and I never pass up an opportunity to eat cake.

        So here's Jesus seeing us from his heavenly throne, and there we are getting all the presents, drinking the eggnog, eating the cookies, granted nearly all the songs we sing are about him so there is that. But does he ever think, "I wish someone would get ME an iPhoneX. I'd text, I'd tweet, I'd post on Facebook." or "I really would love to play Fortnight. Dad, Dad, Daaaaad, when are we getting Wi-Fi up here."

       I love Christmas. I send out lots of cards, I love giving the presents, receiving the presents, singing the songs, going to the parties etc. In fact in 2016 I made my husband, or as you will come to know him, the long-suffering Jim get our pictures taken with Santa Claus. I'll even prove it.

Diane, Santa, Jim and Price

October 2016

One of my absolute favorite pictures of Jim

October 2016

This year we are tightening the fiscal belt so we can pay off our debt and hopefully retire before our deaths. Christmas is going to be less about getting/spending and more about sharing. My absolute bestest friend, Sue, who I've known since 1966 is coming to Long Island for Christmas. We will sing a lot, go into the city to see the Rockefeller Center tree, eat, bake, share, and did I mention the singing. I'll invite some people I know who do not have anywhere else to go for Christmas over for Christmas Day appetizers and drinks.  If you're in the neighborhood, come over. You'll be welcomed with homemade cookies and the beverage of your choice. 

Till next time, welcome to my neighborhood!

     

Camping--Why?

Linda: We're going to primitive camping this summer.

Diane: Isn't that all camping?

I know primitive campers, or as I call them weirdos my former in-laws--not all of my former in-laws, just the ones I called Linda and Roaul mainly because that's their names. 

For those of you who are lucky enough not to know, primitive camping is where you get dropped in the middle of nowhere, portage all of your food, water, clothing, shelter, and miscellaneous supplies deeper into the middle of nowhere to spend a week or longer living without luxury. During this time, you pitch a tent, hunt for firewood, dig your toilet, sleep on the ground, and basically forget any hygiene that most of us take for granted. 

To me this sounds harder work than work! There isn't enough alcohol in the world to make this trip appealing to me. I would probably explode by not going to the bathroom an entire week.  Bears may like to poop in the woods, me--not so much. Heck according to commercials, even the bears use Charmin. When I was putting my eHarmony profile together, one of the questions asked in my profile are what are the 3 things for which you're most grateful. Number 3 on my list was city sewers and running water. 

If I didn't die by gastro-intestinal explosion, I know my fellow campers would have to portage my dead body back home because I would have scared myself to death because I'm convinced that every stick in the forest was a snake out to poison me.Yetis don't scare me, snakes on the other hand. . . the one thing I have in common with Indiana Jones. 

I have been camping more than once but less than five times during the time with my former husband, it was never a great experience. I went with the former in-laws. Not primitive camping but primitive enough for me. Every Memorial Day weekend, most of the in-laws would go up to Necedah, WI to camp and fish at Ollie and Minnie's Fish Lake Campgrounds. They took campers with real bunk beds and the dining table could be taken down and folded into another bed. However, Ollie and Minnie had no running water, no electricity hookups, no showers, no flush toilets--need I say more? The primitive pit bathrooms were a very long walk from where we camped. Seriously, like the walk our parents took to school, uphill both directions in a snowstorm without shoes.  I usually ended up with the flashlight that had the nearly dead batteries in it that went from nearly dead to completely dead when I needed to make the bathroom trek.  

It was okay during the daytime, there was time in the "lake" which was actually the Wisconsin River for fishing (yuck) or taking a lawn chair and sitting in the lake to cool off until Linda had to mention the poisonous water snakes that swam by.  I've never run out of a lake while still sitting in a lawn chair so fast in my life; I don't think my feet touched the ground. There were excursions to Necedah which while not the most boring place in the world had absolutely nothing of interest unless you counted the creepy shrine. The Subway wasn't even open back then. However, I could beg my way into a real bathroom at the gas station.  It's saying something when the gas station bathroom is the more desirable option. These were the days before hand sanitizer as well.

My last trip, I came home and discovered the world's largest tick having the specialty of the house in between my boobs--lucky tick not so lucky Diane. No Lyme's disease  thank goodness, but no more trips to Ollie and Minnie's either.

Here are my last thoughts on camping, go if you enjoy it. Tell me about it when you come back.  I'll listen; I'll admire the pictures. I'll even say it looks like you've had fun. Just don't feel the need to expose me by making me go with you. You enjoy the great outdoors your way, I'll enjoy it my way.

Meanwhile the next time I go primitive camping, it will be at the Motel 6. At least they'll leave a light on for me.

Till next time, thanks for coming to my neighborhood.