July Open Spaces

 

Open Spaces

Vol. 21.7

By John W. Vander Velden

 

July is when summer really starts cooking. Most of us would agree that THIS July has been hot. Well for the most part anyway. It has been wet too. When you mix summer, hot weather, and multiple rains, you get one of the seasons less favorite visitors―mosquitos.

Break out the repellant!

Yet such is summer time for us here in north central Indiana, and we do our best not to allow the buzzing beasts or the afternoon rains stop us from doing some of the things we love. Jackie and I are both fully vaccinated against COVID and so our world is broader than it was last July. Even so we have not allowed our guard down completely, recognizing that the situation remains in flux and could change drastically.

Even so it feels liberating to move about at near to the life we had taken for granted. It is our hope that you too have been able to accomplish some of the things that you could not last year. I look forward to visiting with dear friends and relations in the months ahead, as well as the ability to travel again.

Our trip in late May to early June reminded us that things have not completely returned to a pre COVID state. Many places were understaffed as they tried to “get back on their legs” again. I am optimistic they will, but understand it takes time to recover from such a debilitating pandemic.

Yet the Delta variant reminds us that we are yet haunted by the COVID virus, so we still take care. Yes, our masks are often in our pockets, handy when needed. Washing hands and avoiding crowds ingrained into our behavior. As is using hand sanitizer. Things are better, much better, but it’s not completely better.

But because things in the pandemic department have improved so much, I wish you a happy summer and a healthy one as well for you and your family.

Now for a bit of writing news.

I had the vain expectation in finishing part three early next month. However I have had to do some back pedaling. I felt the need to insert a new scene, one I thought was important near the middle of that section of the book. That scene inspired other changes. A few lines here, a page there, you get the point. But I am moving onward friends.

So I come to the last portion of this newsletter. With all the hectic-ness of our world, especially during the summer, I hope you find a few moments of calm. And when you enter that quiet place, even if you must force yourself to do so, look around you at the wonders God has given you, places, people, things to do, and of course love. May the God that grasps the universe hold you gently, guide your steps, and protect you until we can meet face to face.

Blessings,

John

  

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

Vast Spaces

 

Vast Spaces

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Growing up I thought I knew what the wide open country was. After all I am a country boy. The son of a farmer that chose for his life’s profession farming as well. I have always lived in the rural farm lands. Surrounded by fields with woods nearby to wander whenever I would want. Yes, my world was bound by property lines and pasture fences, but the space beyond was little different than the land I was free to tread. Though, growing up, I was not outdoorsy as my brothers, I valued the comfort of being surrounded by open spaces.

Perhaps that is why so many of my stories are set in rural areas. Because I not only know them best, but because I love them.

But it wasn’t until March of 1992 that I came to understand that the world I knew was not as broad as others. Jackie and I flew to Arizona. It was our first trip to the South West. It would not be our last. We left Phoenix in our rental car going north and a bit west on a two lane highway. Soon we had left what most would consider civilization behind. The road smooth and arrow straight across the desert of scrub brush and scattered bits of tall stiff grasses made up most of the vegetation that surrounded as we whizzed along toward mountains in the distance. The only mountains I had seen before were the Appalachians, those mostly tree covered masses of rock and soil of the eastern U.S.. I anticipated the chance to see the stony monstrosities of the Rockies.

The Arizona desert was an open world, but the extreme vastness did not register until after driving a road that led straight to the horizon for a full half hour, it yet stretched out as far as we could see. Yes, the mountains were closer.

They were not yet near.

It was at that moment I first understood just how vast many portions of our country was. I came to recognize that my own open areas were microscopic in comparison.

But now as I think about those vast lands of the Grand Canyon State and my inability to comprehend their volume, I realize there is a very different vastness as well. For just as it took a trip to Arizona to generate a beginning of an understanding of the unimaginable open spaces, it takes a similar state of mind to comprehend the vast differences between each of us. Yes, there is much that every human has in common, but in each person is blended a unique mixture of life experiences. Those experiences are shaped by personal history, by economic status, by family, by faith, by location, family culture, by thousands of different things tossed together in infinitely different ways.

Too easy for us to think we know everything about another person. Even spouses that have shared years together cannot know every hidden place within their beloved. And yet we look to the neighbor next door and complain to ourselves over one thing or another while never taking a moment to attempt to understand the people at our doorstep.

And if our neighbor from time to time ruffles our feathers, how can we begin to grasp the vast differences between ourselves and those in faraway lands. To make judgments, attach blame, to belittle, and whether we recognize it or not, place ourselves superior.

Just as it took a trip to the South West to teach me how small my own physical world was, I must take a trip, or attempt to in any case, within the mindset of my neighbor. If I am to understand the lost, the hurting, the hungry, the abused, the neglected, the disenfranchised, the abandoned, the wrongfully prejudged, and the others who suffer, I must make the effort to see through their eyes, feel with their fingertips, walk in their shoes.

To me those actions are signs of love and extensions of myself. I know I will never be able to bridge the vast differences, but with love…real love, I can begin to build the first portion of a bridge of understanding.

For GOD so loved the world…not just the dirt, rocks, trees and lakes, but the people that move about HIS creation. God loves you, me, and everyone.

I mean everyone!

It is our obligation to try and reach across the vastness that separates, to care, to attempt to understand, to judge less, to be more patient…in other words…to love. 

(753 Words) 7-16-2021

More...

 

More…

By John W. Vander Velden

 

 

Too easily important things are taken for granted.  Too easily we place arbitrary value on the most significant.  Too easily we forget what things really mean… Two hundred and fifty years ago, fifty-six men signed a bit of paper that changed the world.  Fifty-six men placed their lives and all they had on the line… How easily we forget.  How easily the hype of a holiday overshadows.  Our country certainly is not perfect.  It remains a growing experiment.  Years pass and challenges change but the dream remains.  The dream founded by those bold enough to stand…those bold enough to die.  A dream yet forming…a hope not yet completely fulfilled.  That dream need be remembered… honored… pursued…  For that dream is more than cookouts and fireworks…more than flag waving parades…more than marching bands and fire engines’ sirens…  In truth it is more than any of us can on our own achieve…but always remains within our grasp, if only we all reach with common purpose…  Is it not time to remember and more…to work with our neighbors…our fellow citizens…those close at hand and those further…to take that dream and together make it…more…  

 

(201 Words) 7-4-2012

 

June Open Spaces

 

Open Spaces

Vol. 21.6

By John Vander Velden

June 25, 2021

 

Friends there are so many things I take for granted. During the wee hours of Monday, I was reminded just how much I depend upon the electricity delivered to my home and the farm as well, when I awoke in pitch darkness. It had stormed off and on through the night, but it was near 2 AM when the sound of the rain pelting the roof and window while the wind roared woke us.

Time for us to head for the basement.

I knew as soon as my brain caught up with my feet that our electricity was out. It was the darkness...pitch dark. Now don’t get me wrong I haven’t needed a night light for more than sixty years, but on typical nights there is sufficient light bouncing off the dresser mirror and the walls to prevent me from stumbling. For though the security light is some yards away, with eyes adjusted to “night vision”, if that is a proper description, it might seem dark, but it’s not DARK!

The intense wind passed and now armed with flashlight and a LED camp lantern (we no longer go camping, but the lamp is a gem) we returned to our bed.

But the lack of functioning light switches is only one of things we take for granted which had abandoned our beck and call. The most significant other thing is having running water. It takes power to pump the water to our faucets. It takes power to pump the water out of the basement too. We have a battery backup sump pump so for some hours that problem was covered, that is if you could ignore the annoying alarm each time the battery pump was called to operate. And of course the A/C was on sabbatical, and a rain storm was not the time to raise the windows.  

Then at 2:30 my phone rang. And rang. And rang. I stumbled through the darkness again only half awake to hear some machine tell me that the power was out in Walkerton and what was I planning to do about it.  You see our church has an emergency monitoring system, and I am the contact point. My fogged mind absorbed most of the significance of the computer created message. I pushed #1 which meant “I would do nothing”. And returned to my rest.

The battery sub pump screamed again.

None of these things are, for us so unusual. The power blinks off often and hardly noticed, except all the clock flash their annoyance. But a storm some years ago left us disconnected for five days. That event was the stimulus for the purchase of a small generator that was tugged out from storage Monday morning at first light.

A emergency generator is just that, and I guess I took for granted it would work and did not praise the machine when it fired on the third pull.

With the water pump energized and half the house electrified we were fine, and the continual roar of the little machine only reinforced all the things I juggled that most often operated unnoticed. Reminding me how my world normally clicks forward so efficiently.

Midafternoon the power came back and with a sigh my world returned to its unobtrusive normal. Then I only had to deal with the limbs and felled trees....

Yet I am blessed for through it all, our home and other structures went unscathed. It is my hope that life’s storms have not overcome you. That perhaps you have, like Jackie and I, only been reminded of the things we all take for granted. That the reminding has been only an annoyance, and if the storms rumbled through your neighborhood that God’s hand protected you and yours.

Now for just a bit of writer news. The editorial revise proceeds, and I HAVE finished Part two (about halfway through the book). Yaaaaaaaaaa! With COVID’s restrictions loosening, I have become bold enough to open the possibilities of in person events. Yaaaaaaa, again! My visits with area public libraries seem promising for the possible scheduling of events in the months ahead. Two book store stops Tuesday offered some contact info so that too is a step in the right direction.

So I remain optimistic. Feeling certain, given time, this third book of the series will be completed. Also believing that before fall I might be able to come face to face with the people that make this part of my life’s journey worthwhile.

Running long once again I will wrap up this newsletter with these words. God is love, and love is the strongest force in the universe. I ask that you do your best to tap into that force, to love those whose lives you share. Those in your immediate circle and those your circle touches. Know kindness is never wasted. Compassion heals the broken. Caring make us human.

God bless you today and every day,

John 

     Looking for a copy? Check out these links.

https://www.amazon.com/Misty-Creek-John-Vander-Velden/dp/1641110651

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/misty-creek-john-w-vander-velden/1127857944

https://www.amazon.com/Elizabeths-Journey-Sequel-Misty-Creek/dp/1641115319

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/elizabeths-journey-john-vander-velden/1135154629

  

May Open Spaces

 

Open Spaces

Vol. 21.5

May 21, 2021

 

May is the month when spring seems to finally get fully engaged. Things are
growing and the world is filled with something my mother called the new green. Life surrounds us daily.

Though news tells us that this pandemic we have endured is reducing its hold on us, I am reminded, not gently, that it has not left our day to day lives. Last month we lost an acquaintance, a step-son to a dear friend, to the disease. This month COVID’s cold fingers have struck a member of my own family. Many, including myself, had diligently prayed for the recovery of a niece. For eleven days she suffered and at last passed from our realm to the next.

We, as a family, must now deal with a new hole torn into our lives, a brilliant point of light separated from us too soon. Sadly it is an event that occurs far too often. It is important to remember that with each loss, be it COVID, Cancer, a traffic fatality, or any other cause, touches roughly the lives of their families, their friends, and all who knew them. The numbers of those devastated is far greater than the quantity listed.

So as we continue in this season of rebirth, let us appreciate those that share our space...our lives. Let us respect the fragility of their existence. Let us see opportunities to help secure their protection in ways we can. Is it not an act of love to do so? Would turning our back upon doing the little things, which could have cascading effects upon others, not be acts of selfishness?

That is why I am vaccinated. Yes, it offers me protection, but it is a small thing I can do that could help others...protect others. It is why I, in most cases, yet continue to wear my mask, just as I have for all these months. I do so for two reasons. One: maybe it offers some health benefit. Two: I believe strongly in the power of example.

I do not see the mask as a sign of submission, but a symbol of caring about others...a symbol of love. I wear a mask to remind the world that COVID has not simply vanished...it is too soon to be forgotten.

In my family, as in so many others, we will NEVER forget COVID and the price it extracts...the price it can demand.

I apologize to you today for what some might believe is simply a rant. But I write these words thirteen hours after news reached my ears of our family’s tragedy. It is a wound fresh, the blood yet flows.

Yet I try to remain optimistic, surely Patti would hope I would remain so. I have confidence that though COVID remains, for now, it is not a forever curse. So I eagerly await for the bane of this pandemic to end.

Friends I believe it will.

Now for some lighter news. I continue on the revise of the third book in the Misty Creek series. At present the greatest hindrance is finding the time. I have at last come to a point where things seem to be moving forward more smoothly. Though I have yet to reach the mid-point of the manuscript I feel that the four months spent has not been wasted. For the first time since I began this revision I feel confident in the endeavor,

Friends I have run long again, so I will bring this installment to a close. It is my prayer that you and your loved ones are well. That this season of new life offers grand opportunities and new experiences. May God, the Master and Controller of all things keep you safe until we meet.

Blessings,

John

Looking for a copy? Check out these links.

https://www.amazon.com/Misty-Creek-John-Vander-Velden/dp/1641110651

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/misty-creek-john-w-vander-velden/1127857944

https://www.amazon.com/Elizabeths-Journey-Sequel-Misty-Creek/dp/1641115319

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/elizabeths-journey-john-vander-velden/1135154629

Just Not Today

 

Just Not Today

By John Vander Velden

This week has had its own flavor. I suppose every week does. There are weeks of our lives that are sweet. Some that leave a sour taste, and others that carry a bitterness. One thing is for certain, for us that stay connected to the life around us, things are rarely bland for long.

But in our family we have been walking on eggshells for several days. Sending our prayers of concern and love heavenward. Hoping that somehow the tide would turn, that the waves that sweep along the life of someone we loved would place her safely on our shore. These past days have been tense. And on Thursday the week’s flavor resembled the bile that none care to taste.

With each passing week, we watch as COVID’s reach is trimmed a tiny bit. Yet the virus strikes and leaves devastation in its wake. Illness comes most often unexpected, certainly unwanted. Even the best efforts to keep it outside our door are not always effective. Perhaps it will, before this pandemic ends, roughly touch every family.

It has touched ours.

It has left its mark that cannot be erased by those that continue on.

Confusion is not the emotion I feel with the passing, of one of the sparkling lights, of Jackie’s family. The past week, it seemed, we stood as if watching a train moving passed, coveting the bits of news...hoping for one turn in in a better direction. But it seemed the train was bound for a different station than we would have chosen. She reached that platform Thursday evening.

Comforted that her destination was not some void of emptiness. She was a woman of faith. Faith in her family. Faith in herself. But in the end faith in her God and the promises He had made her. Many do not understand the power of faith. The strength found there.

But knowing her present existence does not eliminate our present pain. For you see all those that knew her...all those that loved her...are held separate from the warmth and love she had provided us. Confidence in her ultimate home does not relieve the suffering of those closest...those whose lives were bound most securely with hers. Those who, must create a new everyday.... Their lives have been upended, torn to shreds, with little physically to show for the pain they suffer. Parting’s pain is real. Loss is something no one yearns to be part of their...long...lonely...empty days.

How do those closest move onward with the bitter taste so strong and fresh?

One day at a time.

Faith helps. But God understands that faith does not eliminate the pain of the broken human connection. God understands our needs...our hopes...our wants. Loss’s pain is real! Tears are not the indication of faith’s lacking...they are the signs of the depth of loves existence.

Jesus’ words...Blessed are those that morn, for they will be comforted, once left me confused. But I have, over the years, learned a few things. We are unable to morn what we have not lost...and we cannot lose what we did not have.

Those whose hearts have been broken by this tragedy. Those that knew Patti best. Those whose lives she had touched. Her husband, her children, her brother, her co-workers, her close family, we will one day know we were indeed blessed because we have the reason to morn...the blessing of sharing this world for a time with an amazing person.

One day we will understand how blessed we are.

Just not today.

(594 Words) 5-22-2021