A bowl of God’s will
November 9, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 9 Comments
photo courtesy of photobucket.com
We all love to be rewarded, don’t we? Whether it’s a long, hot shower after a full day’s work in the yard or something as simple as a bowl of our favorite ice cream after eating the less desirable vegetables on our dinner plate. Does it matter the means in which we receive our reward? Apparently, it does.
To read the story of what a bowl of ice cream taught me, hop on over to katdish’s blog. And if you get there before I do, please save me some Starbuck’s coffee ice cream. It’s my favorite.
Written on my 2,555th day
November 6, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 24 Comments
photo courtesty of photobucket.com
I’m nerdy enough to admit that the History Channel occupies much of the time I spend in front of the television. And despite the fact that lately it’s begun to focus more on the apocalypse than the past, it’s still quality viewing. You can learn a lot about the present by looking over your shoulder. You can learn a lot about yourself, too.
I spent an hour the other day getting a quick education on daily life in 1700s America. Fascinating stuff. It was a time when our country was wild and new, a land of opportunity fraught with struggle and danger. Much like now, I suppose. And of the countless facts the producers recreated and shared, one stood out.
Medicine in the eighteenth century was anything but modern. What doctors would call a manageable disorder today could have been a death sentence then. The diagnosis of many conditions and ailments was at best unreliable and at worst impossible.
Add to that the fact that the world was a violent place and doctors were relatively scarce and poorly trained beyond the few major cities, and you begin to understand why the life expectancy for your average American male was thirty years.
That’s right. Thirty.
That trivial tidbit was supposed to be filed away in the large portion of my brain reserved for useless information, but it wouldn’t fit. It seemed too important to be useless and too profound to be information. I couldn’t help but think there was something in that fact that should be held onto and pondered.
That God has His reasons for everything is something I’ve always held to be true. There are no coincidences, and nothing in life is an accident. If the history of our times are a story, then our chapter could only be written in this one part. We are all here, now, for a reason.
If God had seen fit to put me in this world three hundred years ago instead of thirty-seven, I would likely be dead by now. That’s a sobering thought. In a way, I’m living on borrowed time. It’s almost as if I’ve been given seven years that another me in another time would have been denied.
I’m wondering if knowing that piece of information seven years ago would have had any lasting impact. Would it have given me a needed sense of urgency in my life? Maybe. Maybe I would have seen those extra 2,555 days between then and now as the gift they’ve been. Maybe I wouldn’t have wasted so many of them.
I wouldn’t have spent so many of those days worrying. Wouldn’t have spoiled so many of them with anger. Maybe I wouldn’t have thrown so many of those days away by chasing the inconsequential pursuits of life.
We live in amazing times. Health care is no longer an art or a practice of guess-and-pray, it’s a science. Diseases are routinely cured, and even when they aren’t many who suffer from them continue to live normal and vibrant lives. Life expectancy is now over seventy years, and I recently read where babies born now can expect to live close to a century. In the 1700s I would be considered an old man, but in this century I’m still considered young and in the prime of my life.
But that’s no reason to gloat. I realize that now.
The quality of our days doesn’t depend upon their number, but the number of defining moments in them. Those moments when our sights are raised from the ground beneath us to the treasures around us, when our eyes are turned outward to the hurts of others rather than inward to our own, and when we realize for even the briefest of moments that the burdens of this world are as fleeting as the world itself.
We are made for more than we are, giants in small bodies. “A little lower than the angels,” the Bible says. The days that are bestowed to us should be treated as worthy of our standing. Our moments shouldn’t be regarded as more of the mundane, but as opportunities to grasp a little more of heaven and a little less of earth.
On Writing and Blogging
November 5, 2009 by Katdish · 26 Comments
by katdish
Don’t panic! Billy’s regularly scheduled post will be back tomorrow. This will be my first and most likely only guest post for What I Learned Today.
Truth be told, Billy is taking a much needed rest. A doctor ordered rest. Prayers are much appreciated.
Talent is a wonderful thing, but it won’t carry a quitter. And there always comes a time–if the work is sincere, if it comes from that magic place where thought, memory, and emotion all merge–when you will want to quit, when you will think that if you put your pencil down your eye will dull, your memory will lapse, and the pain will end. – Stephen King, Duma Key
Question: Are you a writer who blogs or a blogger who writes?
(Hint – If you had to ponder that question for more than a nano-second, I strongly suspect you are the latter.)
I will unabashedly say that I am a blogger who writes. I’ll even go so far to say that I can on occassion write well. But to put myself in the same category as some of you reading this post would be an insult to your talent, tenacity and the sacrifices and suffering you have endured for your craft. And I would never do that.
I like to think of myself as a romantic realist — a champion for the promotion of good writing. My heart cries “Injustice!” when I walk into the local bookstore. Because one only needs view the most prominently displayed books to understand that great writing doesn’t necessarily sell books. The size of an author’s platform sells books.
Which is why writers blog:
And twitter,
and have facebook accounts,
and engage with their readers as much as possible.
Which is not to say writers don’t enjoy blogs and social media. I assume that most do. They are a wonderful way to meet kindred spirits, be encouraged and encourage others.
So what’s the difference between a writer who blogs and a blogger who writes? Speaking from personal experience, I would say that as a blogger who writes, the social interaction is what keeps me involved. I want to write well, but (if I’m being honest) the writing doesn’t always come first.
But if you’re a writer who blogs, the writing MUST come first. The ability to write well is first and foremost a gift. But it also a disclipline. One must make a conscious decision to write consistently; to push through all the distractions that can easily become excuses for not doing what must be done. (Or you can continue to try and do everything until your doctor threatens to put you in the hospital. AHEM!)
While reading blogs and building personal and professional relationships on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are effective and even enjoyable ways to help build an author platform, they must never come before your craft. Never forget why you got into this in the first place — to tell your story.
I will take both partial credit and blame for helping Billy Coffey build his platform, and I will continue to do so until he tells me otherwise. Why do I do this? Because like I said before, I am a champion for the cause of good writing, or in the case of Billy Coffey, great writing.
Billy would tell you in his typical humble way that he’s not a writer; that he is a person who happens to write. But I think anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows better. And come this time next year when Snow Day is released, so will everyone else.
Like drinking from a fire hydrant
November 4, 2009 by Katdish · 10 Comments
photo courtesy of photobucket.com
My family and I are gathered on an outcropping of rocks high in the mountains, wondering at the stars. An unusually warm winter’s night has given us the luxury of this little excursion, and we’ve been rewarded with the sort of natural scene that sucks in your breath and makes you exhale in a long, slow whistle.
Planets dance above our heads, stars glimmer, and each of us take turns wishing upon the occasional meteorite. Orion stands guard at his post near the horizon, his belt cinched and shining. The Big Dipper looks as if it’s pouring the Milky Way upon our heads. The heavens are arrayed in a perfect sort of chaos, as if God has sneezed a miracle.
My son gazes up and wonders of rocket ships and aliens. My daughter? Angels and celestial playgrounds. My wife is wondering why we don’t come up here more often, because we should.
And me? I’m thinking about a dog I met last summer…
To read the rest of my encounter, follow me over to my friend Annie’s blog. And while you’re there, say hi to Boz for me. Now that’s one cool dog!
At the polls
November 3, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 35 Comments
photo courtesy of photobucket.com
Today has been designated a blog carnival day by Peter Pollock, the topic of which is Remember. Which is fitting. I’m doing a lot of remembering today.
November 3 is voting day for the good people of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Our state Constitution says it’s time for a new governor and representatives to the state legislature, and there are always the handful of new laws to consider.
Voting to me has always been much more privilege than duty, and that’s a belief I want to pass on to my children. I want them to know the importance of what they will do every time they stand inside that curtained booth. They will become participants in a bloodless revolution, shouting their voice of continuation or change without uttering a word. The democratic process may well be the single greatest invention of man for this one thing—it allows ordinary people to alter the course of history.
I’m by myself this year, voting on my way home from work. But during the Presidential election last year, I took my son with me. That’s what I’m remembering today.
The crowd was large. That’s what I remember the most. Large but civil, as if they, too, understood the seriousness of their business. The only sounds were the murmurs of polite conversation and the shuffling of feet as voters were identified and assigned to their proper places.
My son hung in my arms, swiveling his head at the slightest sound. I’d gone over the gist of the voting process on the way to the voting station as well as could be explained to a four-year-old, which by necessity involved metaphors of both Star Wars and, strangely, Phineas and Ferb. But he still had questions. A lot of them. Questions that were reserved for the moment the curtain closed around us in the booth.
“So we get to say who’s the boss?” he asked.
“Yep,” I answered.
“Which one are you voting for, Daddy?”
I pointed and said, “That one.”
“Is he good?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. The pessimist in me wanted to say that I doubted it, that I doubted it very much, but that when people vote it’s usually more like they’re picking the least bad person rather than the best.
But instead I just said “I think he is,” and hoped it sufficed. It did, but then he asked me a tougher question.
“Does he love God?”
“He says he does,” I told him.
“Lots of people say they love God, but they don’t act like it much. Does he act like it much?”
“I don’t know him, buddy,” I said. “I just know what he says. Sometimes what people say and what they do are different.”
He didn’t like that and neither did I, but such was life and there you go.
“Grandma says her mommy and daddy never voted because they were squirmish,” he said.
“I think that’s ‘Amish,’” I corrected. “And you’re right, they didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because to them God was the boss and no one else could be.”
“God’s the boss of me,” he said, then added, “even more than you.”
“Even more than me,” I said. I flipped the switch next to the name and said, “Okay, pull the lever and we’ll be done.”
His hand hovered over the bright red handle, then paused. “Maybe we should be like the squirmish people,” he said.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I think God wants us to speak for Him, too. And that’s what we’re doing.”
“By voting, right?”
“Right.”
“Can I pull the lever now, Daddy?”
“Sure.”
He did, and the curtain opened.
Hand in hand walking back to the truck, we passed twenty or so people on their way in. Fellow soldiers in the revolution of continuation or change. A news truck was in the parking lot. A reporter glanced over notes while shielding her eyes from the sun. It was a bright sun that day, bright and bold and hung high in the sky. I remember wondering if it was still rising or beginning to set, and I remember thinking the same about our nation.
“I hope he wins, Daddy,” my son said.
“Me, too. But if he doesn’t, it’ll still be okay.”
“Because God’s still the boss?”
“Because God’s still the boss.”
Logan’s do-over
November 2, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 12 Comments
(picture by photobucket)
Halloween is a pretty big deal in these parts, which may or may not have something to do with the Hershey factory that is smack dab in the middle of town. And since I live fairly close to a pretty concentrated amount of people, you could say that the streets near my home are Candy Central.
I don’t complain, though. I like Halloween. Like seeing kids dressed up, like the scary movies, and like the candy (not necessarily in that order, mind you).
If there’s one thing that grates against me, though, it’s the stragglers. The hangers-on who refuse to bow to the time of night and the porchlight being off and knock on the door anyway. Usually the cut-off time is around 8:30, but there have been years when we’ve had kids who were still walking up the driveway an hour later.
I had a few stragglers this year, too. But none came as late as Logan, who sauntered to my door not Saturday night but Sunday afternoon.
To read the story, hop on over to katdish’s blog. I have to say he’s one trick-or-treater I’ll never forget, and one of the few who have given me a treat.
Author of Snow Day and Paper Angels (November 2011), both by FaithWords. But don't let that fool you. I'm just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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