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First Edition Design Publishing - Marie Duquette

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64 pages

English

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A pastor and a tap dancer, both writers, met through their children and began a long-distance friendship that grew closer through other people's stories. This book is about the unplanned moments in the lives of people Marie and Tracy have come to know before, during, and after they became friends.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

Informations

Publié par	First Edition Design Publishing
Date de parution	05 avril 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781937520717
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0162€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Given Moments

by
Marie Duquette and Tracy Lawson
Copyright © 2012 by Marie Duquette and Tracy Lawson

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form, except for brief quotes used specifically within critical articles and reviews.

ISBN 978-1-937520-71-7
Published by First Edition Design eBook Publishing
March 2012
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com

Follow Marie and Tracy online at http://duquettelawson.com
Dedication:

To Adam, Chase, and Keri, who challenge, inspire and amaze us.
Acknowledgements:

Marie:
God has blessed me with family, friends, mentors, and colleagues all of whom contributed to this book by enriching my life. I have chosen not to list them by name lest I forget someone dear to me. Instead, I acknowledge you all through my favorite African proverb: ‘I am because you are’.
In addition, I would like to acknowledge three groups whose presence in my life enabled this book to be written:
My current congregation, First English Lutheran Church in Ashville, Ohio.
The Congregation of Faith Lutheran Church in Baltimore, Ohio where I served from 2003 until 2010.
The English students at Bexley High School who endured me as a substitute while I was unemployed, listened to my original Life List, and Elaine Barnes, who encouraged me to write this book.
And finally, Carole D. Kuehn, who has always been my biggest fan.

Tracy:
Thanks to all the contributors whose enthusiasm for the Life Unplanned Project and whose willingness to share their stories has made this book possible.
Also to my husband, Bob, whose support never wavers. Thanks for letting me be me.
PREFACE

Marie is a pastor. I’m a tap dancer and choreographer. We have families, busy lives and jobs that require a lot from us creatively. We met through our teenagers, Marie’s son Chase and my daughter Keri (also known as The Verbs), who became friends in middle school. In the last three years, our families have lived 650 miles apart and we’ve lived together under the same roof. We’ve vacationed and spent holidays together, and we’ve survived unemployment, job searches, a cross-country move, broken bones, broken hearts and maybe even some broken dreams. Hardly anything has happened the way we planned.

Marie and I came together as friends, then sisters of the heart, and now as co-authors, each when the time was right.

Early in our friendship, we discovered we’d both been journalism students in college and aspired to be writers. This led to us nurturing and mentoring Chase with his short stories and Keri with her video projects. The idea grew that we all might have something worthwhile to share.

Marie had started writing two or three books, all shut away in her filing cabinet. I had a nonfiction project I’d been working on sporadically for the last twenty years. We’d both been too busy raising kids, working and dealing with life’s ups and downs to achieve our writing goals.

In 2008, my family moved to Alabama from Ohio for my husband’s job. I took a break from teaching dance, finished my research, and landed a book deal in the summer of 2010. A few months later, Marie left her call, and in the eight months of unemployment that followed, she started a blog, and worked as a supply preacher and a substitute teacher.

As she faced her 50 th birthday…

Ok wait—let me tell this part.

Yes, I was bummed about approaching my fiftieth birthday--divorced, unemployed, and broke. It was not at all where I thought I should be at that point in my life! Early in my career as a pastor, I discovered that when somebody is hurting, encouraging them to tell their story helps heal their heart and sets them free. So I made a list. The opposite of a Bucket List—a list of 50 things I had done in 50 years.

That exercise took me from “How can I be 50?” to “How could I have done so much in a mere 50 years?” I posted the list on my blog and invited readers, family, and friends to submit their own Life Lists. Tracy and I decided to work on the project together, and in less than a week, we had 30 lists. We now have 63 people who’ve contributed to the project, candid, compelling lists from a widely diverse group of folks who range in age from “almost one” to 79.

The fascinating items, the ones that made us say, “tell us more!” were the moments that were not planned. At any given moment, something unexpected can happen. Our contributors responded to those unanticipated moments and found hope, humor and grace.

It’s what we do with our given moments—bidden and unbidden—that fills our lives with stories to share.

The chapters in this book lead off with stories inspired by items on our lists. Then I pray the voices of our contributors will lead you, the reader, to the sort of epiphany I had when I made my list: that we must trust, and embrace life and its twists and turns, because we cannot expect life to go according to our plan.

Marie and Tracy
I learned that I am not in control of my destiny. I learned that the place where denial meets acceptance is filled with emptiness and a bit of regret. I learned that it is possible to laugh with a broken heart. –A, 43
Chapter 1 - Plan

Marie:

I had been a pastor for about a month when I asked Karol Pierce where he had left his arm.

Karol’s wife, Claudette, attended my church regularly. She said I was welcome to visit them, but I should not expect Karol to attend church or to take communion.

Karol met me at the door of their farmhouse and welcomed me in. Bear, their big black dog, led the way to the kitchen. The round table was just big enough for three, since Bear lay where the fourth chair might have been. Homemade vegetable soup was simmering on the stove and an army of Ball jars was lined up on the counter. Karol offered me a beer and Claudette swatted him with a dishtowel. While we visited, I had two bowls of the best soup I’ve ever tasted, several pieces of homemade bread and some of those rectangular pink wafer cookies with the cream inside.

“I love these things,” said Karol, reaching for another with his left hand.

I asked the big question:
“So Karol. What happened to your arm? Do you mind telling the story?”

And he didn’t mind. Not at all.

Sixty years before, when Karol was fifteen, he was at a train station with platforms on both sides and multiple tracks between. He needed to get from one side to the other. The train traffic was constant and crossing the tracks was akin to crossing a freeway. When he was halfway across, he fell and caught his coat sleeve on something. A passing train cleanly severed his right arm before he could even think about wriggling out of his coat.

Someone lifted him off the tracks. At some point he was transferred to a stretcher, and drifted in and out of consciousness while two men carried him several blocks to the hospital.

Karol was a major league baseball prospect before his accident, a gifted pitcher who had scouts coming to see him play on a regular basis. He loved baseball more than anything.

Karol returned to school after the accident, and on his second day back, his math teacher said to him, “I don’t know why you’re here—you can’t write!”

Karol said, “I closed my algebra book, and, regretting I had not practiced throwing with my left arm, heaved the book at her, shouted, ‘Go to Hell!’ and walked out of the classroom.”

On his way out of the school, Karol told another teacher what had happened, and that teacher reported it to the principal. Karol’s mother went to school immediately and “straightened things out,” but Karol did not return to class until the following semester.

Karol couldn’t stand people’s pity. He wanted everyone to treat him as they had before the accident. “My mother took me to church, but I hated parading down the center aisle for communion, knowing all the women were looking at me with big, tearful eyes. One day I just walked out and didn’t go back. I would rather be alone than be pitied by folks I hardly know.”

That’s when I got the idea.

“Karol,” I said, “Would you be willing to let me tell in a sermon what happened to your arm?”

I was surprised when he answered without too much thought, “Well, yeah—I guess so. But I think I ought to be there when you do it, don’t you?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

Claudette raised one eyebrow, smiled, and nodded.

That Sunday, Karol, Claudette, their three daughters, and their grandson were in church together when I told his neighbors of nearly thirty years how he lost his arm. The congregation was clearly nervous, even though I assured them I had Karol’s permission to tell the story. None of them had ever asked him what happened. They considered it rude.

But Karol didn’t think it was rude at all. In fact, he seemed like he was set free once the story was out. He proudly walked up the center aisle to take communion that day, and continued to do so in the years that followed.

It wasn’t until my last year as pastor of that church that Karol told me the rest of his story. Losing his arm was certainly unplanned. But Karol learned to play baseball with one arm, skillfully enough that he played on several teams as an adult, including the Merchants, who played a game against the inmates at a federal prison in Oklahoma.

“We were always looking for a game,” said Karol. “So someone suggested we call the prison and see if they’d like us to come in and play. The prison was happy to have us. They allowed the inmates to play baseball as a reward for exemplary behavior, so that’s who we played against.”

“I never had to look for my bat or my glove when we played there,” he said. “Every time I set it down an inmate would pick it up and walk around with it, and then bring it to me when I needed it. I guess they were just so happy to be part of the game in any way they could.”

“It was a big prison housing a couple thousand inmates,” he went on. “The first time I hit one out of the