December Open Spaces

 

 

Open Spaces

Vol. 21.12            December 24, 2021

By John W. Vander Velden

I have been writing these letters for nearly two years. Perhaps I should remind you where the title Open Spaces originated. It comes from two places actually. One: I love the open lands. Raised on a farm in northern Indiana. Becoming a farmer at the age of twenty. You might say I am a man of the land. When we travel Jackie and I find ourselves most at home, in areas of vast landscapes, whether that be the deserts of the Southwest, the trails in the Appalachian Mountains, or the out of the way coastal beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. We are most at ease spending time in Open Spaces. Two: The title is tied to the stories I have written. Or most of them anyway. Stories set in non-urban settings. Those are the places my stories take place. And those settings become an extra character within those stories, ie Elizabeth, Matthew, and the prairie grasslands etc.

Should it be surprising that I would call a newsletter about my writing...Open Spaces?

I think not.

“Shifting gears” or “back to tack”, I am the keyboard. I spend too many hours in front of the CPU screen it seems, but today, Christmas Eve, I have begun this month’s newsletter. For some it might be the first time you have found Open Spaces in your inbox. I welcome you and hope you find these words worth your time.

But it is Christmas Eve, and everyone is busy today. Yours truly included. But as we rush about attempting to finish all the last minute things we are certain need to be done, let us not forget that it’s Christmas. Christmas means a great deal to me.

Christmas is about Family. About my family...your family. This will be the first Christmas that Nick, our son, will be unable to join us, even for the few brief hours as he had these last years. But though our son is 1100 plus miles away, he is still family. He still has a piece of our hearts. The phone is a poor substitute, even a face on the screen is insufficient, but family’s bond is not diminished by distance, is it. Yes, Christmas is about family.

Christmas is about joy. Laughter at games we will play around the dining room table with others. Movies and music and all the rest that make for happy experiences. Yes, Christmas is about joy.

Christmas is about light. Lights on the tree, lights we see as we drive around at night, candles that burn around the Advent Wreath and sometimes light our home in the evening. God sent his Son to be a light in a dark world, a light for us all. Christmas is about light.

Christmas is about love. Love is the glue that holds the universe together. Love for family, for friends, for neighbors, for those we meet on the street. Love for our God. For Christmas is the ultimate sign of God’s love for you and me. Christmas is about love.

Christmas is about connections. About reconnecting to those we have allowed to drift away. About remembering connections that time and life has given. Those connections might appear to be severed by distance, or perhaps something that seems much more than measurable space. Deep connections are never limited by material boundaries. Even death’s chasm does not stop love’s reach...love’s binding...a connection unbreakable. Christmas is about all good connections.

What does Christmas mean to you?

 

Now for just a bit of writing news.

The third book of the Misty Creek Series has a name. I have finished the editorial revisions of With the Sun’s Rising in late-October. The BETA copies have been printed and distributed. One has come back to me, and I await their return of the others. I will carefully consider the answers to the questions I have asked my readers and study their comments. The book is scheduled to go back to my editor in mid-January. I will have a better handle on how much more work this book requires when Kristina, my editor, sends it back to me.

“Shuck to the cob”, John.

What this means is, I have reached an important milestone in the process of shaping this particular book. But it is a long work...646 pages, roughly the equivalent to two volumes, and I expect that I will need to pour many, many, more hours into the book before its completion. You will have to be patient, friends. I would expect a publishing date of summer 2023. I know that seems like forever, but imagine how it feels to this writer.

That’s where things stand from today’s viewpoint.

So I close this newsletter simply, for I wish you a Merry Christmas and a healthy 2022.

Blessings,

John

 

 

Looking for the links to purchase your own copy https://johnvandervelden.com/purchase-a-copy/

 

2021 Christmas Letter

December 8, 2021

Greetings from your Northern Indiana friends,

How has the year swept by so swiftly, and to my amazement the calendar tells me it is December once again. Yet looking back I can see, if I take the time, and I seldom do, that a great deal has occurred since last I sent you a couple of pages.

The world has moved beneath COVID 19’s shadow throughout 2021, but it has moved. Even though we know that the vaccine is no silver bullet, the shots removed a weight from our shoulders we did not notice we were carrying. Except in that burden’s absence. We remain diligent, but gained a confidence that we had done our part in this crisis, and felt more at ease in our day to day life.

That confidence opened us to consider many things we had postponed and avoided for more than a year. Travel being one of them. So once we were fully vaccinated and time became available we headed south to see Nick. The timing of our first trip made things awkward. That and the rush to put our itinerary together. Yet things fell together, sorta. Memorial Day weekend, messes with reservations we needed to make and we were unable to stay in the hotel we had used on each of our trips to see our son. So a hotel twenty miles east became our base camp for the week. That was how two teetotalers ended up dropped down in Bardstown, Kentucky, the Bourbon Capital of the world.

Actually we liked Bardstown, and it didn’t matter that you could hardly “chuck a rock” and not
hit a distillery. They were everywhere. But the old town has an incredible historic district with its shops and houses of a wide variety of architecture. We took time to see the museums and met some remarkable people. Spoke with an authoress who had been part of the city council for many years. Dixie Hibbs was proud not only of the many books she had written about the local history of the area, but also the community which was her home.

Each night we drove to Elizabethtown to meet with Nick as we did our best to catch up in ways that are impossible by phone. It had been more than a year since we saw our son face to face, and those hours were priceless.

During that week we also did a bit of semi-serious hiking. Clifty Falls State Park, near Madison, Indiana was our first, but time spent in the Red River Gorge area of Kentucky filled much of our walking time. Natural Bridge is a sight to be seen and I recommend it.

After we had returned home, a few day trips made up what turned out to be a busy summer. St. Joseph and South Haven, Michigan as well as visits to Goshen, Nappanee, and Shipshewana, Indiana were delightful brief escapes from Jackie’s work and what seemed the perpetual task of the grass I needed to clip. But one of this year’s biggest changes came about in September. For after forty years of service, Jackie decided the time had come to set her white coat aside.

Retirement is a big decision and each of us come to that crossroad by our own route. But for Jackie, as it was when I gave up tending the soil in 2017, there arrived a moment when she knew it was time to pass off the baton. However these past few months, Jackie has helped out at the pharmacy a few hours a week. She’s giving vaccinations in the hope of aiding in the protection of others. Doing her part remains important to her. It is as simple and complex as that.

September was a big month for other reasons. One, the really big one was that Nick moved from
Elizabethtown, Kentucky to Arvada, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. A visit to the Colorado Mountains a couple years ago made his heart yearn for the Denver area. He found a new position and west he went. Well, late September his parents had to drive the 1100 plus miles to see how he was settling in. That’s what parents do. But we found that our son loved the place he had alighted, and that was enough for us to be happy for him.

Though Jackie had been to all fifty states, I had never been to Colorado. Oh my, what scenic wonders! We visited with Nick in the evenings and did our sightseeing throughout most of the days. Spent half a day visiting with Jackie’s Aunt Elaine. What a delightful time we shared that day. Also on a misty day, temps in the 40s, after wandering the shops of Estes Park, we were invited to the home of one of Jackie’s Purdue classmates. It was a joy to watch these two friends reconnect after forty years.

Some friendships never die.

Our trip to Colorado was a fantastic time, and come spring we hope to make our way to the Centennial State again.

The fall has moved along too swiftly as it always seems when people are busy. And Jackie and I keep occupied. As for me, 2021 found me at the keyboard whenever time allowed. Too often and too long I must admit. I have been working on the third book of the Misty Creek series. Though publication of With the Sun’s Rising is more than a year away, I have been working on an editorial revision for most of this year. Am I please with this draft? Yes, I am. Will my readers be pleased? Well, I hope so, but time will tell.

I need to wrap this up, so I will close with these few words. Jackie and I wish you a very Merry
Christmas. And that you remember the important reason we celebrate this special time of the year. For God so loved the world, that’s more than rocks, seas, and trees...it includes you and me. That He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus. Born in a stable to ordinary, but most special people. Christ came into the world to save us from ourselves. Surely Jesus’ birth deserves this special day, Christmas.

May the light and love that is Christmas, fill your home and the hearts of all you love.

Who I Am

 

Who I Am

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Perhaps it is counterproductive to take the time for self-examination. Yet I find there are moments when I ask the questions in an attempt to understand …who I am. For, hopefully, the answer to those inquiries is deeper that the reflection I see in my bathroom mirror. I believe that each of us is much more than the veneer we show the world around us. The part of us revealed by our actions as we go about living the most ordinary portions of our lives.

It is not for me to decide the value of my actions, any more than I should choose which tasks I engage, or which people I take the time to aid or assist. Those activities, which I decide to do, are mostly shaped subconsciously by the man I am. Others will judge if the way I spend my time is a benefit or a bane, and yet I, on occasion, wonder about the quality of the person I am becoming.

For I understand that I am molded by the activities in which I participate, by the things I select to observe, choose to hear, or pick up to read. So times come when I must take a deeper examination of how these stimuli work to form the man I am becoming. And whether those changes are for my best.

Or the best for those near me. Those I interact with each day.

Yet, I am the first to admit that I am not the person to make that designation...of whether I am in a process of growth or decline. A person cannot be objective enough when looking inward, can they? The fact is I have hashed over my personal failings thousands of times. Events long ago gnaw at me still...remind me of the flawed person that moves about within my skin.

Does self-incrimination drive one to improve?

Perhaps.

I think it can, if, in my case, if I recognize the root causes that drove my actions, see my error, and understand how I should have behaved. Each person must address their own past ghosts and the effects of their hauntings.

As for me I feel that I have changed. That time and life has worked to make me into a different person than the one of years ago. I have learned. I have accepted. I have grown.

Late at night, in the dark, when I search myself deeply...privately...I must accept the man I have become while I remain dedicated in my attempt to improve myself. The task would be impossible except for my faith in something far beyond me. For woven within the fabric of who I am, is what I am...a child of God.

For it is my hope, my deepest hope, that my God and the faith I carry within me, pushes me to become something more that skin, muscles, organs, bones, and mind. That what I am is more than this vessel you might see.

More than the vessel I see.

For I have confidence that God sees deeper that even my critical self-examinations. Deeper than I could possibly imagine.

So these few words offer me a method to study myself in a new way. To lay out some of the puzzle pieces that make up this man, the pretty parts and the ugly. To handle each with the reverence they deserve. For I would love to cast aside some of the pieces of that puzzle, but the picture of who I am could not be completed without them.

But God has taken those pieces. The ones I am proud of. The ones I regret. Washed each of them clean in a way that only the Almighty is able. He is aiding in my assembly of the puzzle I am...each day. Helping me move forward day by day. Strengthening weary muscles and failing intensions. You see I know that, in the end, if I remain focused on the larger realities, God is helping me to become...who I am.

  (670 Words) 12-10-2021