1st Book Signing

1st Book Signing

By John W. Vander Velden

 

 

Those who have followed these posts over the years know that I often write about possibilities and dreams.  I write about making a difference and faith as well.  Each week I lay before you a few words…just a few… And I hope those few words have reached within you, as you have taken the moments out of your busy lives to read.  I thank you all.

But today I write about another dream…my dream.  I write about the long years pressing toward a goal now coming to fruition.  For today I will host my very first book signing.  Imagine that, John will be having a book signing.  But greater is the surprise that John has published a book.

I don’t suppose those that knew me in high school ever imagined that I would be in this place I find myself.  Some will point at my age and say, “it’s about time.”  Perhaps it is.  But I believe, strongly, that there is a reason we stand at the particular place we find ourselves at a particular moment.  No, things do not “just” happen.  No, it was not an easy process.  But, yes, I had help.

Each week I have posted “something”, and each week some among you have ventured to read that “something”.  You have supported me in ways you do not know.  Also throughout my life, others have kindly aided me in ways that they too might not recognize.  Each of us face challenges and writing and publishing a book has its challenges.  I would love to list out all of you name by name, friends, other writers, editors, fellow participants in workshops and all the rest, but I must limit the length of this post, and the list of your names would exceed my word count.

But this post is about dreams…and never giving up on those dreams.  This post is about courage, to face new challenges face on.  This post is about self-value for each of us struggle with feeling of self-worth.  This post is about Misty Creek, my book and a story in which I believe.

So if you come to see me in Plymouth today or Nappanee next week, I wish to thank you, my friends, my co-writers, and all the others I have yet not met.  For you all have been part of the voyage I have undertaken.  Dreams can come true…I know that’s true…even now…mine is…

(408 Words) 3-28-2018

Time

Time                    

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

A beginning…an end.  Is our need to measure so demanding that nothing escapes?  Do we limit our perception?  Are we unable to believe in more, being tied to the finite?  Is it simply a weakness of our mortality?  Yet time passes.  It passes slowly it seems while we watch…quickly while we are joyous.  It passes throughout the day with our knowledge.  Passes without our consent as we sleep.  Seconds become days…days become years…time waits for no one.  Yet life is so much more than the arbitrary.  Is it not beyond boundaries, measured by more than the clock and ruler?  Who truly knows our beginning…only God.  Only God measures our worth…a value more than a sum of ticks…  Valued through eyes that see beyond any limits…especially time.

 

 

(130 Words)         1-10-2012

Morning

Morning

By John W. Vander Velden                                 

The soft early morning slipping through the sheers of his bedroom did not wake him.  The soft and quiet way his beloved left his side, did not wake him.  Nor the sounds down the hall as she worked in the kitchen.  The aroma of fresh baking, muffins, blueberry, that slowly filled the air did not wake him.  It was the sounds of laughter…familiar laughter…that drew him from deep slumber.

Rolling onto his left shoulder smiling as he listened to gay voices, certain he had been allowed to lay too long.  A luxury rarely his, blinking as his mind yet foggy slowly grasped the new day’s beginnings.  The doorknob turned slowly, the latch clicked softly not two feet from his face.  Slowly the brown varnished wood began to move.  Joyous eyes and smile peaked through the crack…the door’s slight opening.  Bright and blue the eyes beneath the knob. His daughter quiet, though a giggle came from behind.  The door pulled shut firmly with a squeal.  Feet thumping down the hall and away.

Michael stifled a laugh as he remained, confident it would not be the last of Josie’s shenanigans, and knowing little Billy would not be excluded.  It was not long.  The knob jiggled a bit…a little one way then the other.  “Let me do it.” Came the familiar sound, Josie’s voice, young yet assertive. 

“No…I can…” Yet the latch remained resistant.  Michael reached, opened the door slightly.  Two faces…small and smaller pressed side by side peering in.  Sharp eyes, naughty they seemed, one set bright blue the other deep brown.  “You awake daddy?”  Billy’s eyes dancing, his voice tentative.

Josie pushing the door aside shouted over her shoulder.  “Daddy’s awake.”  The children quickly climbed onto the bed tickling their father.  It was morning!          

1-29-2012 (302 Words)

Comings and Goings

Comings and Goings                   

By John W. Vander Velden

 

It is natural to wish for constants.  Things we know to always be the things we know.  And there are those truths that will always remain, but in each of our lives there will be comings and goings.  Concepts, and fads arrive with much fanfare, and fade nearly as quickly.  Yet the most important arrivals and departures are people.

The passing years have taught me that comings and goings are as much a part of my life as the air, I draw in and the breath I expel.  I cannot clearly remember the faces of my second grade classmates I abandoned to another state in 1959.  I know many held importance to my young life, but they remain only in the foggy memories of a passed long gone.  Those of my fourth grade remain a bit clearer left behind as I was towed along on my family’s migration a thousand miles north.  Yet I know I was changed by them, by their coming and going.

That is the point.  Each of us have had people, important people come and go.  Some only touch our lives an instant.  Others remain with us for many years.  A parent has always been there…then not.  A child enters our universe nearly consuming our vision of reality, filling our everyday with hopes and concerns, worries and awards.  The child grows…hopefully…changes as he or she matures… and begins at last a life of her or his own.  Even that is a coming and going.

So the comings and goings are very much a part of life, and are shaped by these encounters.  We should not forget that we too have passed through the countless lives of others that we share this planet.  That the time and space we share with friends, family, co-workers, and even strangers, as we come into their lives and slip out, change not only ourselves but them as well.

I write these words as I think about my father.  For today would have been his ninety-third birthday.  Some might say I was fortunate to have had the massive amount of time with my parents.  Working within the “family business” created a relationship uncommon in today’s world.  I will allow the good of it or the less than good to be determined by others, for I have nothing to use as contrast.  It was my life, and those comings and goings were like nothing I have face before or since.  Yes, my parents aided in shaping me into the person I have become, but it is my hope that over the years I had a hand of shaping them to some extent as well.

That is the purpose of this set of words.  To remind you and myself as well, that we come and go, passing through a world filled with people.  That we leave a mark.  It is important then to do my best, to leave a positive mark in the world, by my comings and goings, and earnestly pray that I do…

(504 Words)  3-7-2018

 

Perhaps a Roar

Perhaps a Roar        

By John W. Vander Velden

 

The month begins like a lion we are told.  March, unlike any other month, arrives on winter’s tail.  A time of transition, the harshness of wintertime fading, the hint of warmer days to come.  Quickly the days grow, soon the sun’s appearance longer than its absence.  Yet the lion has not abandoned the throne, perhaps a roar remains to find us ill prepared.  The dark overcast skies…cold north winds…snowy days a temporary thing.  For perhaps the roar of winter can yet be heard, but frost and chill’s reign has neared its conclusion.  Winter is passing…new life of spring only weeks away, and the cold season’s harshness only increases spring’s joy.

Endings and beginnings…a lesson hard learned.  Times dark and troubling, roaring through our lives are not the whole of our existence.  Highs follow lows, light comes as certain as the sun’s rising.  Each must face the winter of our lives. Though, during the hardest of times, we may not believe that spring lies near at hand.  That pain, disappointment or sorrow will end and greater joy may come.  Perhaps a roar fills our ears…now…but the gentle lamb waits!

(195 Words)         2-28-2013