The Forest Throne, Writing

More on “The Forest Throne”

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When building a fort in the woods, it’s good to have a helper.

Well, I’ve been sitting at my computer for an hour editing The Forest Throne. I totally forgot that the first writing I was supposed to do this morning was my Monday blog post. Hence, here it is 7:50 a.m. I’m 20 minutes late and just getting started.

Every fort has to have a beginning, and many hands to make the work light.

I had planned my post today to be about The Forest Throne, which I’ll abbreviate TFT hereinafter. I told something of the genesis of this book in a prior post, promising then to tell something of the story in a future post. The future has arrived.

Soon, it begins to look like a fort.

The story revolves around Ethan. He’s 11 years old to start the book, visiting his grandparents for Thanksgiving with his parents and three siblings. Ethan has some issues (what 11-year-old doesn’t?), and he’s constantly being corrected as he torments his little brother and sister. He and Grandpa go for a hike in the woods behind the house, into the hollow, something they do on every visit.

You never know what you will find when you hike down an Ozark hollow.

This is the Ozarks, not the highest mountains part, but the foothills. Lots of valleys covered with oak trees eking out a life on rocky hillsides. Way down the hill, just before you get to the bottom of the hollow, they find an odd formation in the hillside. It looks a little like a chair. It seems to be manmade, and has a hole drilled into one of the “arms”. Ethan sits in it, calls it his forest throne, and immediately wishes it was a time machine. His grandfather reminds him “There’s no such thing as time travel.”

Later they go across the street from the house and work on a fort. You’re in the middle of the woods. It’s someone else’s land, but they aren’t around, so what do you do? You build a fort. It takes a few years of repeated visits to get it done. While playing at the fort, Ethan’s little sister finds a blue peg, which he immediately takes from her. He realized it is the same size as the hole drilled in the forest throne and determines to go back there to see if the peg fits. Maybe it’s the key to activating the time portal.

Well, he does go back there; the peg does fit; and nothing happens except the peg gets stuck. Nothing he tries gets it out. Soon the visit is over and he and his family goes home to Texas.

They come back the next year during the summer—just the three oldest kids, not the parents or the baby brother. Ethan is 12 now, and he gets to stay longer after the other siblings go home. He goes down to the throne, which is a little hard to find, but he finds it. The peg is still in place. After much trying, he learns that with a little bit of twisting the peg will come out. He pulls out the peg. In just a few seconds he encounters….

Well, this is about as far as I can go without giving away the whole plot. Let’s just say that Ethan’s hopes that the throne is a time portal turn out to be all too true. He activates it, not once but twice, and a terrible thing has happened as a result.

TFT is done. I finished it last Wednesday. I finished reading it to the wife last night. I’m most of the way through with my first round of edits and will likely complete them today. My critique group has through Chapter 4. Later this week I’ll get it to my beta readers, all five of them. They are ages 13 through 8. We’ll see if it passes muster. Hopefully it will be ready to publish not later than April.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, self-publishing, Writing

2021 Book Sales

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My highest selling book in 2021.

It’s been a long time since I posted my book sales. 2021 was my best year for sales. I guess you would call it a record year, though, with the numbers still as low as they are, record somehow seems inappropriate.

I sold 223 books, almost all sales coming from on-line sources. That beat my previous best year which was 156 way back in 2012. Also, in 2021, I passed the 1,000 lifetime sales mark, ending up with 1034.

Why the increase? Amazon ads. I began running some ads on Amazon in July 2020, added to them in 2021, and sales finally happened. Unfortunately, to this point I’ve spent more in ads than I’ve received in royalties from all sources. It’s not a big number, and the deficit is shrinking. At the end of the year, I was down only $4.52, though at worst I was behind $73.80. If the trend continues into 2022, I’ll be money ahead in a month or two. Just on ad spend, not overall. The cost to maintain this website puts me way in the red each year.

Had 19 sales of this, pulled along by the ads for the first book in the series.

I had sales of 22 different books, out of 35 books listed for sale at year end. Highest of those was the first Documenting America book, which I advertised. Second was Doctor Luke’s Assistant, which I also advertised. The other two books in the Documenting America series also had double-digit sales, as did Acts Of Faith, which I advertised.

Several of these “sales” were actually through Kindle Unlimited, the first that I had from that Amazon sales channel. I think royalties work out to less, but I’ve had a hard time rigorously tracking them.

So, here comes 2022. My ads are still running. They don’t seem to be working quite as well as early in the year. I will probably add another book to those I advertise, though I’m not in any hurry to do that.

Here’s hoping 2022 will be another best year for book sales.

 

 

goals

Writing Goals for 2022

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In my post last Friday, I recapped what my writing progress was in 2021, and promised to make my next post about my writing goals for 2022. So here I am, as promised.

But, as I do so, I have only a few goals. Is that because I have no writing planned? No. It’s because I’m close to the end of two projects, have three others started. Will that be enough to fill the year? If not, I can conjure up more works later on.

Delayed a year due to the pandemic and construction adjacent to the church, we will celebrate our church’s centennial July 8-10.

But enough chat. What shall I do this year?

  1. Finish the church Centennial book. At present, two people besides me are proofreading it. Once we complete that, there will likely be a few more words to add. Besides that, I have to do a fair amount of work on photos, trying to enhance the quality, moving them to the exact position they are supposed to be. I suspect that will take a lot of hours this month. We have already found two printers for it, at least one of which can do it in our price range. Someone else on the committee will handle the cover. If I had to guess, I’d say we are two or three weeks away from having the words done, four weeks away from having the photos done, and just two weeks away from deciding on a printer. That means the book should be issued in late February or early March.
  2. Finish The Forest Throne. Yesterday I reached the second main plot point, where the protagonist figures out how to solve the problem. That’s at the 29,000 word point. Which means I have only four or five thousand more words to go. Which means I should finish the first draft in less than two weeks. I have two beta readers lined up, plus my three oldest grandchildren. I’ll be working on it during that time. No predictions about when it will be done, but I doubt it will be published before April.
  3. Publish at least one Bible study, and work on three. I will discuss this more in a future post, where I’ll discuss where my different Bible-studies-in-progress stand. Right now, I really can’t say which of three I’m thinking of will be first. Also, I can’t say how long any will take to complete. Those details will have to develop as the year unfolds.
  4. One goal remains as it has for three years: blog twice per week, generally on Monday and Friday.

The following two items are goals, but right now they are not firm. I think they will both happen, but who knows?

  1. After numbers 1-3 are complete, begin serious work on the next book in the Documenting America series. More on that in a future post. The research is done, though I did it so long ago I’m not sure I’ll remember it.
  2. After number 5 is done, or maybe simultaneous as I near the end of it, begin work on the next volume in the church history novel series.

That’s what I’ll add for now. But I suspect, even as 2021 did not go as I thought it would, I suspect 2022 will be the same. I’ll update this at different times during the year.

goals

The Writing Year In Review: 2021

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December 31 is a Friday this year, my regular writing day, also the end of my 70th journey around the sun. Time to look at what I accomplished this year, how well I did relative to my stated goals. I won’t then add goals for 2022. I’ll do that in January. Here, I’ll paste in the goals I posted on January 4th, and say what I did on them. Then I’ll add some things at the end, things I did that weren’t part of my original goals.

  • Finish and publish The Teachings…I might have the book ready to publish in April. Mission accomplished.  I completed the writing in February, took almost two months to edit, proofread, and receive feedback from beta readers. The e-book went live on April 13 and the paperback on April 25. As to sales, it’s had a whopping 7.
  • Write and publish one Sharon Williams story. Mission accomplished. I wrote Foxtrot Alpha Tango slowly as the year progressed, ran it by the Scribblers & Scribes critique group, and published it on December 15 after letting it sit two months. In a little twist, I did the actual publishing steps while on a Zoom conference with two 4th grade student who are interested in publishing.
  • Write and publish one Documenting America volume. I’m planning for this to be Run-up To Revolution, covering 1761-1775, the documents that led to our rebelling against England. Nope, didn’t get this done. Too many other things got in the way. I read some more for research. In fact, the research is done, except I will probably have to re-read some once I actually get on the book. I did make a lot of notes as I researched and planned out which source documents will go into which chapters. Thus, I won’t have to start at ground zero.
  • Write and publish a Bible study. I’ve planned out what I want the next one to be: Entrusted To My Care: A Study of 1st and 2nd Timothy.  Alas, I didn’t get this done. I did work on a Bible study, in fact put a lot of effort into it. But it wasn’t Entrusted To My Care.  My research and the beginning of my writing was in March-May on the Last Supper, which I taught in adult Sunday school class. I dusted that off in the summer and combined multiple files into one, and again in November when I tried to assess where I was and how much effort was left. If I get either one of these published in 2022, it will take a pretty concentrated effort.
  • Maintain a twice per week blogging schedule. This I did, mostly. I may have missed a time or two just due to busyness. A couple of times my regular blogging day snuck up on me and I only did a quick, no-information post. But I consider this a complete task.
  • Write some poetry. I did not accomplish this, though I tried. Several times I took pen and paper in hand and tried to set down lines of poetry, but nothing came to me. Instead, I planned my next poetry book. I scoured my already completed poems, found the ones that would work with the theme I chose for the book, and loaded them into a Word file. That gives me an idea of how many poems I still need to write (a bunch) to make it a viable book.

One thing that was on my mind last January, but which didn’t make my goals list, was to write the young adult novel I’d discussed with my oldest grandson. Tentatively titled The Forest Throne, it’s about adventures in unrequested, undesired time travel. I began writing it on June 8, never working on it intensely, but sporadically. As of last night I had ±21,000 words written, on the way to, I think, 40,000. I ought to be able to finish it in 2022.

And, another thing I did was significant digital decluttering. This goes along with the physical decluttering the wife and I are doing. I had old computers to pull data from and get rid of. I had multiple folders from prior computers loaded to the cloud that needed to be coordinated with other, more active folders. I made major progress on this.

It included going through my email inbox and outbox and sorting, saving, discarding, and archiving my emails since I started using this address in 2005. I’m working backwards on that and doing well with it. I completed all years up to and including 2011. I have 590 e-mails to go in 2010. For an exercise, I dumped my saved 2011 emails into a word document with an eye on creating a book out of them. Not for publication, but for my easy use and reference. Then I can discard some things from notebooks, reducing physical clutter.

And, one more writing item that took up more time than anything else: writing our church’s Centennial book. I began the research in January and managed to write 1500 words by month’s end. The research and writing took more time than I had planned on. But it is done. The book is being proofread by two people, and by me, and we are looking at publishing options. While this was time consuming and certainly pulled me away from my other writing, it was also fun and satisfying.

So there’s the year in review.

 

Christianity, Christmas

Mild He Lays His Glory By

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So humble the way He came to us, but so precious the path that has led for all of us from that manger.

I thought I was done with Christmas posts for this year, but another has come to mind. It’s to do with Christmas songs again, with another favorite of mine. And it ties into our pastor’s sermon yesterday.

The song is “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”.  It’s not quite my favorite Christmas sone, but it’s close: in the top five if not the top three. We didn’t sing it in any church service this year until yesterday. The words were written by Charles Wesley in 1739. The music is by Felix Mendelssohn. According to Hymnary.org, it has been published in 1,242 hymnals. It’s a great hymn for a brass-dominated orchestra. Thous it also sounds good with a string quartet. It sounds especially good when sung by the Celtic Women.

Toward the end of his sermon, Pastor Mark focused on the third verse.  Whenever the song is sung, you rarely get into it past the second verse. In fact, while I fell in love with the third verse many years ago, I’d long forgotten those wonderful words:

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.

There, in language now considered archaic though still understood, is a wonderful message. Why did Christ come to earth? So that God’s purpose in redemption would be fulfilled. So that sinful mankind could be reconciled to God and put on a right and righteous path in a difficult world. How beautifully this verse says that. “…born that we no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.” No preacher has ever said it better than that. No other song has said it in clearer or more melodious language.

Hence, I should really say nothing else. Christmas may have been the day before yesterday, but the Christmas season is still with us. Take a moment to sing “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing”, getting in all three verses (the song actually has more than three), and enjoy the richness of the message.

I’m hardly the first person to write about this. I found a blog post by one Daisy Rosales that was quite well done. It would be well worth your time to pop over there and read it.

Once again, merry Christmas. I continue to say that because we are still in the season. I’m still listening to Christmas carols as I do my work. I hope you do too.

Christmas, family

Another Quiet Christmas

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We didn’t bother with a Christmas tree this year, except for the six miniature ones in the Christmas village.

I wrote last year on Christmas day that Lynda and I were having a quiet Christmas. ‘Tis the same this year. It will just be the two of us, the family having all been with us at Thanksgiving. Well, today we still have Rocky, our neighbor’s dog, with us. We’ve been watching him since Sunday while they got away for a pre-Christmas R&R trip.

Rocky is a good dog, but he’s homesick for his own family. They live four lots up the hill from us, three vacant lots in between. Our normal route to walk him takes us by his house, and he expects to be taken inside it. So we pull him along and he gets over it. In the evenings especially he seems restless and wants to go home. Last night was about the best for him settling down without a lot of difficulty.

I’ve always liked to display blue lights at Christmas, but this red lights display up on the next street is very nice.

The walks after dark have been very nice, as well as the early morning ones. Up on the next street, several houses have outdoor Christmas lights. Nice to walk by them and enjoy. On one of those early walks, before this warm front came through, I found the first frost flower I’ve ever seen. I’ve heard about them for a long time, but have never taken a leisurely walk in the right conditions for them to form. Thank you, Rocky, for making that possible.

One thing different this year from last is our church has returned to holding a candlelight Christmas eve service—two of them actually. Last year we elected not to hold them, with the covid pandemic still in its pre-vaccination stage. We are thinking of going to the 4 o’clock service. It will be good to gather with everyone and focus on Jesus’ birth for an hour.

Another difference is we hope to get together with my cousin Greg and his wife Bev. Although living just 8 or 9 miles apart, it’s been two years since we’ve seen each other. Greg’s health is tenuous and they have been taking lots of precautions. They were supposed to come for Thanksgiving, but he wasn’t feeling well and they cancelled. Our plans are to drive around Sunday evening and see Christmas lights. Beyond that nothing is planned. We may get hot chocolate somewhere and sit on the square in Bentonville, enjoying unseasonably warm weather under enough Christmas lights to read by.

Otherwise, we will read much, probably watch some TV, and eat a nice meal of turkey breast, dressing, and roast vegetables. We’ll eat on it for a week. Hopefully we’ll get to walk. Not with Rocky, however. His family returns today. We’ll take him to his house before we go to church. He’ll jump for joy as we open the door, only to be disappointed his family isn’t home yet (but will be soon).

So a merry Christmas to all. Remember the reason we celebrate it.

miscellaneous

Uh Oh, It’s Monday

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Many people around here have seen frost flowers, but I never had, until walking Rocky this morning.

Since I retired, Monday isn’t much different from other days. But Monday is my regular blogging day. Here it is 6:30 in the evening, and I suddenly remembered I hadn’t yet posted a Monday blog. So I quickly opened my computer and got to work.

But, I’ve forgotten what I was going to write on next. I need to do another post on The Forest Throne. I need to do a post on the short story I just published, but I don’t feel like it right now. My writing progress post will be for next week. I covered writing groups recently. So what to post?

It’s just a few days before Christmas. We will be here alone again, unless we can get together with my cousin Greg and his wife Bev. We got our Christmas cards done on Saturday and mailed today (except for one or two i realized I forgot). Right now we are dog-watching for our neighbors. Rocky is a good dog to do this with. He’s not overly demanding. Walking him I get more exercise, in smaller bursts, than normal.

Rocky is our house guest right now, and took me out of the house this morning so that I got to see the frost flowers.

Today I took him outside at 6:15 a,m,, it was still dark and I couldn’t see much on our short walk in 26 deg temperature. I took him out again around 9:15 a.m. The temperature was maybe up to 30 deg. On the way back to the house, in the frontage of a wooded lot, I saw a couple of frost flowers. These develop only in certain conditions of temperature and moisture. You have to be out and about at just the right time to see them. This morning was one of those times. If we hadn’t been watching Rocky, I never would have seen them.

Well, this isn’t much of a post, but it’s all I have at 6:30 p.m. on blogging day, but it’s what I have. I’ll try to be better prepared on Friday.

Christmas, letters, miscellaneous

Uncategorized Creativity?

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Dateline: 16 Dec 2021

My parents didn’t send religious Christmas cards. These are typical of the leftover cards I’ve been storing for two decades plus, wondering what to do with.

On Tuesday just passed I attended the monthly meeting of the Northwest Arkansas Letter Writers. This is a small club of people who enjoy writing letters. The emphasis is on physical letters and pen pals (though for me, e-mails are equally letters). I learned about them around the first of March 2020 and attended their meeting shortly after that at the Bella Vista Library. Then the pandemic hit, and the library closed.

During the pandemic, we didn’t meet for the first few months. After a while they decided to meet outdoors, under the drive-through canopy of a church not too far from my house. We had to bring chairs, and even in the outdoor venue stayed away from each other. We met like that for over a year. Sometimes we cancelled when the weather was too hot or too cold. But it was a way to stay in touch.

The cards have a simple, non-sectarian message.

Even when the library re-opened, at first they wouldn’t allow groups to use the newly-constructed meeting rooms. The problem was a legal one. This is a private library, and the lawyers had some concern about outside groups, even groups sponsored by the library such as ours is, using the facility. They eventually worked that out, and we began meeting there in September.

That’s a long introduction to December’s meeting. We didn’t have a formal program. Rather, we were all to bring old cards to show around. That was perfect for me, because right now I have a lot of old Christmas cards out of boxes, making a mess of our house. These are cards, as seen in the photo at the beginning of this post, that I found at my dad’s house back in 1998. They appear to be remnants of cards my parents sent in the 1950s. You buy a box of 25 cards and use 22 out of it, putting the rest aside to use next year. When that comes around you buy another box of 25 and use 23 out of it, totally forgetting that you have three left over from last year. Now you have five left over. On and on it goes. A decade later you have a fair number of unused Christmas cards.

I’ve had these remnant cards in a box in the storeroom for all these years, sorted into their own large envelope, wondering what to do with them. I think there are between 35 and 40 of them, but only 4 envelopes. Last year I came to the conclusion we should send them as our Christmas cards next year (meaning now). Since these are a special size, without envelopes, what could we do?

The template, perfected on the third try and already put into use.

Well, for our meeting next month, the letter writing group is making envelopes as a craft project, and will share them around. We are to make 12 envelopes. If we choose to, of course. Now, I’m not an arts and craft person, and making envelopes as a craft project didn’t excite me. I pretty much decided I wouldn’t do the envelopes. Then I realized, I have a need to make envelopes, to use to send these cards.

Ah ha! A practical need is not really arts and crafts. It’s an environmentally friendly activity. Rather than trash those old cards, I can make envelopes to send them in. And, rather than use clean sheets of paper for the envelopes, I can use paper from the re-use stack, printouts of my writing that I planned on using the back to print other things on.

The first envelope off the assembly line. I like it. Not sure the wife will, however.

So yesterday, I took the time to create a template. That took a while. I used two sheets of paper to create envelopes before I had it right. Then I used one to trace the template on cardstock and cut it to size. I then made one envelope and tested it with the cards. It was perfect: just a little over-sized as I wanted it to be, since the size of the cards varies a little.

Envelope creation began immediately. I’m not sure Lynda will agree that sending these cards in an envelope created on the back of my writing sheets will be a good idea. No problem. If she doesn’t, I’ll just make others from clean paper and use these for the letter writers meeting in January.

It’s as close to being artsy-craftsy as I’ll ever come.

Christmas, memories

A Christmas Memory About A Song

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Christmas music has been filling the airwaves for a month now, though becoming progressively louder and more ubiquitous with each day. I enjoy it, both the sacred and the secular. The Christmas music we had growing up is still pleasant to me. We had the Gene Autry album, the Arthur Godfrey album, and a couple of others I sort of remember. We had primarily albums of secular holiday music. For Christmas hymns we went to church. I don’t believe there was any all-Christian radio in the 50s and 60s, so we didn’t get a steady diet of the songs of the season.

But this memory is about one particular song. I first heard it in 1964 at the Christmas program in our weekly assembly in junior high. I was in 7th grade then. At this assembly, Faith Farnum, a 9th-grader, sang “The Birthday of a King”. Faith was a wonderful singer and regularly sang at assemblies. It was the first time I had ever heard the song, and I’ve never forgotten it. It doesn’t get a lot of airtime at Christmas, and I don’t know why. In fact, I have never, in the 57 Christmases that have passed (including the one that is rapidly passing) since that first time, heard it sung live again.

As beautiful as the song is, and as simple yet rich as the lyrics are, I don’t understand how it remains so obscure. Whenever I mention it to someone, they have never heard it or heard of it. When I do a search for it, I find recordings of it by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Judy Garland, Kelli O’Hara, and a number of others. It was once in the Baptist hymnal and, for all I know, may still be.

“The Birthday Of A King” was written in 1918 by William Harold Neidlinger. His biography at hymnary.org is as follows.

William Harold Neidlinger USA 1863-1924. Born at New York, NY, he studied with organists Dudley Buck and C C Muller (1880-90) …. He played the organ at St Michael’s Church in New York City. He also conducted the Amphion Male Chorus and the Cecilia Women’s Chorus in Brooklyn, and the Treble Clef Club and Mannheim Glee Club in Philadelphia, PA. He taught in the music department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts & Sciences. He went on to study with E Dannreuther in London (1896-98) then worked in Paris as a singing teacher until 1901. In 1897 he married Alice Adelaide Maxwell Sypher, and they had a son, Harold. Returning to American in 1901, he settled in Chicago, IL, where for several years he was one of the prominent singing teachers. He wrote music for a religious mass…published a comic opera…another opera…a cantata…two song books,..[etc.] …He became interested in child psychology and nearly abandoned music. He even established a school for handicapped children in East Orange, NJ, where he taught his theories of musical pedagogy and speech and vocal therapy. He wrote several secular songs and edited a number of vocal songbooks, especially for children. He was a theorist on musical methods and education. He died at Orange, NJ. He was an author, composer, and lyricist.

Quite impressive.

Once I learned that so much music was available on Youtube for just the cost of listening to a few ads, I went looking for this one Christmas, and every Christmas since. I haven’t so far this year but will do so today as I go about my work in The Dungeon. I’m anxious to once again hear that beautiful refrain:

Alleluia, O how the angels sang. Alleluia, how it rang. And the sky was bright with a holy light. ‘Twas the birthday of a King.

Here’s a link to the performance by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. It’s a little different than the arrangement Faith sang to, but still good. Happy listening.

Christianity, miscellaneous

R.I.P. Gary Borchert

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Well done, good and faithful servant. We will miss you, but rejoice at your current status with your heavenly Father.

Death seems to be all around of late. My sister not so long ago. Church friends earlier in the year. Classmates from high school. Something like 80 out of 725 people listed in our senior yearbook are now dead. Just this morning I learned of the death of a former pastor’s daughter, who I was working with as I write a church history. Writing remembrances should be getting easier, but it’s not.

On Dec. 7, our friend from church, Gary Borchert, crossed the river from life to death. Here is his obituary. Only 73 years old, but a life well-spent.

Gary and Sue came into our lives around 1995-96. They visited our church one Sunday. We did not meet them at the service. Lynda and I were at that time part of a ministry that went to the homes of those who visited the church and gave them a small gift, maybe a coffee mug and a jar of jam. We got Gary and Sue. I remember going to their home, then in Rogers, and the time we spent with them. They were very open to our visit and kept us there an hour or so, just talking. They were horse people, having acreage at their house, which back then was at the edge of Rogers. It wouldn’t be long before the city started closing in around them and they did the wise thing of selling their property and moving to a house in Bella Vista.

They became faithful attenders at and members of our church. They formed the nucleus of the “Amen Corner” from a row up front, always worshiping with abandon, not worrying about who was behind them, watching them. At one point the pastor asked them to attend the start of the second worship service (after they had been in the first), for it was a little dead and they were an example to others on how to praise God without concern of what people thought of you. In our adult Sunday school class, he was always ready with a comment or question.

Gary’s life was one of accomplishment. He served his country in the Air Force and was in Vietnam. I remember a Sunday School class I taught around Christmastime one year. Gary and Sue were in it. Dealing with Christmas memories, I asked, “So where were you at Christmas 1969?” (or a year either side of that) Most of us were in high school or younger. Gary answered that with one word: Danang. What a way to spend Christmas.

Gary had a voice for radio, and he worked in that industry for many years. He took part in dramas at church, and, if I remember correctly, narrated from time to time. His most famous role in a church drama was as Dr. No, even shaving his head for the part. Another role he played was being father to his grandson after their daughter’s untimely death. This would prove to be a challenge, one that Gary and Sue met with grace, and, when called for, tough love.

Somewhere along the way, after we met them, Gary became involved in a workplace accident. I don’t remember the particulars, but it injured his back. He struggled with this the rest of his life. The first struggle was with the insurance company, or maybe it was with workers’ compensation. I played an unwitting part in that. While he hobbled on foot as much as he could, Gary was trying to get a motorized cart to help him get around. We had a Sunday school class blog at the time, and after seeing Gary struggle to walk one Sunday, I posted that it was good to see him walking. I meant it as an encouragement to him. The insurance company saw it and said, “Ah ha! He doesn’t need a motorized cart.” They eventually straightened it out and he got the cart, but the bureaucratic struggle added to the physical struggles.

An example of Gary’s willingness to serve, and his desire to be of use even with his limited mobility, was Easter Sunday 2010. We were in the midst of a parking lot renovation. Who does that when Easter Sunday is upon you, right? But that’s the way it happened. I was in charge of getting those improvements done and, knowing the condition it would be in that day, worked with our pastoral staff and the men’s ministry to have at least five parking attendants for each service, helping people to navigate to the parts of the lot that were usable. Gary responded to the request for volunteers and showed up early that day, in his motorized cart, and waved cars to a certain row until it was full. Then he pulled forward and waved them to the next row. He showed us all what Christian service was all about.

A great couple, lovers of Jesus, servants in the church.

Over the years, Gary dealt with health issues and had operations and times in the hospital with severe infections. The pain from his injuries, complications from them, and loss of mobility made life difficult for him. He met the challenges. Though, he wasn’t always the best patient. He would resist going to the hospital when Sue thought he needed to and wanted to be discharged before it was wise. I remember a talk I had with him about that, reminding him that his wife was a registered nurse and had a better understanding of his health than he did. He did much better after that.

On one screen, I have Gary’s picture up. On this screen what I type. Gary, we will miss you. Sue and Kody will miss you. But we rejoice that you are now pain free, infection free, and that your radio voice is competing with the choir of angels as you narrate the stories of God and His Son Jesus. You have now heard the words that the rest of us will someday hear, a day that gets closer for all of us: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come share in your Master’s happiness.”

Author | Engineer