Author: Joyce De Ridder

Categories
Poetry

Prompt: A Frying Pan of Noodles

ID 5850541 ©Orangeline | Dreamstime.com

Our creative writing group did not meet this past Wednesday. This is drawn from an early time.

Imagination and Reality

When there were noodles in her frying pan
She pretended it was steak.
She was a landscape architect
When her hand was holding a rake.
She envisioned Neiman Marcus
When the mission store she shopped.
She imagined a house beautiful
Wonders that were unstopped.
When she washed her dishes
She was pearl diving.
Her old Ford was a Mercedes
Whenever she was driving.
Life was hard
But it was her attitude
That made her life
Ever-streaming gratitude.

But in loving her family
There was no pretense.
Her caring for others
Was seen as immense.
To her hard-working husband,
She was a loving wife.
To her aging parents,
She was their life.
Her children knew that
She always cared
Even when discipline
Was not spared.
Available to others
In sickness and health
To her family and friends
She was their wealth.
To the known and the stranger
She was a treasure.
What she got in return
Was love without meansure.


Categories
Poetry

A Stomach Filled with Hunger

Here I am on another Wednesday. Our most recent prompt was rather strange, but I made two attempts to address it. Lately, I have been writing much more verse than in the past. I’m not sure why. It is what seems to emerge.

Meals Alone

A stomach filled
with hunger for another face at the table
Eyes meeting, smile reciprocated, dishes passed

A stomach filled
With hunger for a leisurely conversation over a meal
That feeds the heart and mind as well a the body

A stomach filled 
With hunger assuaged by faces on a TV screen
And observation of others conversing

A stomach filled
With hunger assuaged by the presence of a pet
Who shares a meal by begging
Who listens without ability to respond

A stomach filled quickly
Eating alone, hardly tasting, minimal preparation,
Little enjoyment, hunger unsatisfied.

Now, for the second.

Unsatiated Hunger

A stomach filled with hunger
Misunderstood
Misinterpreted
Looking for satisfaction not found in food

A stomach filled with hunger
Ignores the signal it's filled
Keeps on stuffing t'til ill
Triggered by frustration
Or pain or loneliness
Waits for no indication of emptiness 
Feeds the body to comfort the soul 
Distract the mind
Give artificial pleasure

A stomach filled with hunger
Misdiagnosed needs
Fed by limitless supply
Unhealthy choices
Devoured with lack of restraint
First a bad habit
Then an addiction
Obesity an epidemic
A cultural phenomenon
Categories
Poetry

Prompt: A Warm Blanket on the Bird

 Thoughts Provoked by a Prompt

What thoughts does this prompt provoke?
Thoughts of the Creator who made the birds of the air
And deemed them worthy of His care,
Who gives the sparrow food,
Who warms it with a blanket of sunshine.

What thoughts does this prompt provoke?
Thoughts of the Creator who made us in His image
And counted us more valuable than the birds,
Who meets our needs
And shelters us in His blanket of love.

What thoughts does this prompt provoke?
Thoughts of the Son of God lamenting over Jerusalem
Who would have gathered her children together
"as a hen gathers her brood under her wings"
but in rebellion they reject the blanket of His body.

What thoughts does this prompt provoke?
Thoughts of the Psalmist who speaks
Of the shelter of the Most High
Who "will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge."

What thoughts does this prompt provoke?
Thoughts of a steward of creation
Who accepts the assignment of the Creator,
Who picks up an oiled-soaked bird
and blankets it in warm, cleansing suds.

This was written for our creative writing group meeting on October 16, 2024. The Bible quotations are from Matthew 6: 26-27 and Psalm 91:4.

Categories
Poetry

Creative Writing Prompts

It has been over a year since I posted anything on my blog. I imagined I needed to produce something different and fresh for my blog whenever I wrote. Since I had so many writing obligations, adding one more was too much. This week, I decided that if I were to keep this blog, I would post writing I had done for other purposes. The most regular brief pieces I have done were for the creative writing group I attend. Each week, we are given a prompt as the focus of our writing. These vary, sometimes wildly. By posting the new and the old, there will be quite a variety. Below is the one written for this week’s meeting. The prompt was “entangled gift”. 

                TWO IN THE SAME PEW

On Sundays

   They walked through the same door
   They sat in the same pew
   They read from the same book
   "the gift of of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ
    our Lord"

   One wanted to earn and payback
   The other received

   One was there out of duty
   The other out of love

   One worked to be accepted
   The other knew acceptance

   One toiled for affirmation
   The other rested in it

   One served out of duty
   The other out of love

   One found it easy to judge
   The other found no need

   One gave begrudingly
   The other cheerfully

Each week they went to work

   One promoted self
   The other promoted others

   One sought leadership
   The other led by serving

Their neighbors watched them

   One repelled them
   The other drew them

Their children lived with them and grew up

   One's children ran to escape
   The other's ran to embrace

They grew old

   One feared death
   The other welcomed it

For one God's gift was entanged with works
The other received it by grace

   "For by grace you have been saved through faith. 
   And this is not your own doing;
   it is the gift of God, not a result of works,
   so that no one may boast."

One had religion
The other a relationship

The Bible quotations are found in Romans 6:23 and Ephesians 2:8-9.

Categories
Poetry Relationships

Real People

On January 1st, I started reading the Bible through again. I decided to use the Amplified version this year because I appreciate the added synonyms that give me a fuller meaning of words.

Sometimes, I find it hard to get a sense of the people in the Bible stories as real people in relationships with one another and with God. They appear as paper cutouts like the image above.

Last month I shared a poem with you written by my friend, Agnes Fisher. I loved what that poem did for me in sensing some of the emotions Mary, the mother of Jesus, would have felt. Today I want to share another poem by Agnes. It is titled Noah’s Wife. I read it as I got to the story in Genesis of Noah and the ark. It made me pause to reflect on Noah’s obedience to God over a long period of time as he built the ark and what it cost him emotionally.

We know from the Bible that Sarah questioned God’s promise to Abraham that he would have a biological son. Since she couldn’t believe the promised son would be born to her, she proposed that Abraham have a child by Hagar.

Job’s wife told him to curse God and die, after Satan was allowed to afflict him physically.

We don’t know from the Bible what Noah’s wife experienced. However, this poem helped me to see her as a real person as I caught a glimpse of what it might have been like.

Noah's  Wife

She stood far back
listening to her neighbors 
laugh and deride Noah
pointing accusing fingers
shaking wise heads
shooting scornful looks
laughing, laughing, laughing
at her husband
at the boat builder
at the dry ground.

The great Ziggurats
the sophisticated city
the gardens and roads
the tree-lined streets
the modern cafe's serving
the flat breads and fruits
that stood in mocking judgement
to the folly of the simple-minded
builder hammering his silly
vessel together as though
it would rain.

They slunk
out of the city 
to observe 
perhaps to spy
perhaps to ridicule
perhaps to laugh to
double over in
mutual hilarity
and be entertained 
by the madman
the "captain" at they
called him now.

"Hey, Captain Noah
when's it gonna rain?"

How much rain would it take?
she thought as she struggled her way
through Noah's obstinate
building days,
through her former 
friends' ridicule and laughter
through dried out days
to launch such a great,
such a stupid ship?

Jaweh, Maker of heaven
and earth had given orders.
Jaweh was the planner,
the predictor
the architect
the contractor
the foreman
and Noah
the poor
mad builder.

Why had Jaweh made such a fool of him?

She
could not grasp
Jaweh's plan,
Noah's obedience,
her friends' derision,
her own confusion.

His wife laughed him to scorn
with the others.

Then the rain came.

The times, customs, culture, and language described in the Bible are vastly different from our own. However, despite these differences, we, like them, are human beings living in a fallen and sinful world. After reading this poem, I found myself contemplating what Noah may have been feeling – the pain and loneliness in his marriag and family, having relationships that are unsupportive, full of questions and doubts, and the weight of sacrifice. Also, I wondered about the encouragement, the honor, the reverential fear, the intimacy in Noah’s relationship with Jaweh.

Since I am now reading in the book of Deuteronomy, I have read the stories of so many others that have caused me to pause, ponder, think of them as real people, and then look at myself. There was and is always a price for obedience. But far more valuable is the invitation to intimacy with our Creator, who gives the necessary grace for living each day in the midst of all our circumstances and relationships.

Thank you, Agnes, for a poem that causes me to reflect and an opportunity to share it.

Categories
Poetry

Remembering and Anticipating His coming

I chose the featured image of the manger and the crown of thorns because they embrace joy, sorrow, and hope. The baby, Jesus, is not there. The Christ who wore the crown of thorns is not there. He was born. He lived. He died in our place. He arose. He ascended. And now we wait for his second advent.

Recently, I was in the home of Agnes Fisher, an artist, poet, and teacher who leads the creative writing group I participate in. I am the newest group member; others have been with her for years. Before I left, she took me through her home so that I could see her paintings. In the process, I learned of poems partnered with some of her paintings compiled and published a dozen years ago under the title Daughters of Zion, Voices of the Women in the Bible.

I sat with a cup of coffee this morning and read through some of this lovely book. Later, I asked and received permission from Agnes to share one of her paintings and a poem that blessed me in my quiet time.

We know the story. Mary didn’t. She lived through it moment by moment and experienced fear, wonder, joy, love, grief, and hope. She held in her heart the things she did not understand.

As I immersed myself in the words and picture below, my heart was flooded with emotion and overwhelming gratitude that I could celebrate the birth of the one who also became my Savior. And I, too, must hold what is beyond my understanding in my heart.

Mary

Fear brought me to my knees.
Joy lifted me up.

Grief swallowed me whole
Resurrection saved me.

At his birth
At  his cross
At his tomb

I was stretched to
the limits 
of motherhood.

My son is my saviour
and I am his child

Who can get it?

If Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, Creator and Sustainer of all things, who became flesh, a baby born in Bethlehem to a virgin, who lived and died that we might be reconciled to a Holy God, has not become your Savior, may you find Him. And to those who belong to Him, may we know and love Him more intimately, live for Him more fully, and become more like Him as we worship and wait for His return.

In the new year, I hope to share other poems from this book by Agnes. If you are interested in it yourself, you can find it on Amazon under the author’s name, A. C. Fisher, or you can get it through WestBow Press.

Categories
Relationships

With Thanks

To my readers in Slovakia and places other than the U.S., Thanksgiving Day, always the fourth Thursday in November, is one of the biggest and grandest holidays in the U.S. The featured image is representative of what will be repeated thousands upon thousands of times this next Thrusday as families, often multi-generational, will gather around a table to share an elaborate meal together.

According to the Transportation Security Adminsitration, 30 million Americans will fly between November 17 and 28. The American Automobile Association estimates 49.1 million will drive more than 50 miles to their holiday destination.

While the majority of the populaton will celebrate is some way, there will be other millions of people without family with whom to spend Thanksgiving Day for dozens of reasons – broken relationships, deaths, illness, incarceration, homelessness, lack of family or lack of resources – to name a few.

Many are anticipating the day and others dreading it. Some will create new and treasured memories and others will have painful experieces they want to forget.

Personally, I am planning to drive 25 miles to spend the day at my sister’s home with six other members of my extended family. However, there have been many years I have spent Thanksgiving Day without family. At times I have been alone. Sometimes I have shared the day with friends and at other times not celebrated at all.

Wherever I am and whoever is with me, I want most of all to say from the depths of my being, “I am glad to be me here with you.” There is no greater joy than to have the three aspects of that statement combined and filling my time and space: being glad to be me; being glad to be here; being glad to be with you.

I am glad to be me

God created me in His image, placed me in a particular family, in a certain place, at a specific time in history. Everything I have had, have now or will have is from His hand. I am grateful for all of it. Most of all, because of Jesus, God gave me a new life in Him and purpose. As deeply flawed as I am, I know I am loved and accepted by Him and have no one to please but Him. Even when I am most disappointed in myself, most selfish, most unloveable, I am still glad to be me because I know I am forgiven and God will patently correct me. For those of you who can say the same, you are as blessed as I am. For those who cannot say this yet, it is still possible for you.

I am glad to be here

I am thankful to be here at this moment in time. I am equally glad to be wherever the “here ” is in space. The joy of that is I am not longing to be somewhere else. I can be present in the moment. I can carry a sense that there is meaning and purpose in being where I am right now. It has not always been so. God had to teach me many lessons before I could say honestly and consistently “I am glad to be here.”

I am glad to be with you

God is relational and He created us for relationships with Him and with one another. Whoever you are, when I am with you I am grateful. The moment we have together in any place will not be repeated. Any next time we have, I will be different and you will be different. Maybe part of what will change us is our being together.

I was not always able to say this. There are still so many lessons I must learn about relatonships. But if I believe God has a purpose in our being together – whatever that may be and though I may not understand – then I want to be grateful and glad to be with you.

Even on a Thanksgiving Day when I was sad, hurt, and without human company, because Jesus was with me I could say, “I’m glad to be me here with you.” In fact, He says that to us.

My prayer

Father, whether this Thursday is a special day to some or an ordinary day to others, may those who read this be able to say with gratitude to you they are glad to be who they are. If they cannot, please bring them to that place. May you also give them the ability to see meaning and purpose in where they are. In their relationsips, whether difficult or serene or joyous, may they give and grow in ways that produce thankfulness. I ask these things in the name of Jesus.

Categories
Poetry Relationships

Coming Home

I meant to post this a month ago after returning home from Slovakia. It is a poem I wrote on August 26, 1988 for someone else’s homecoming 35 years ago. It was written for Joe Ann as she came home from treatment for alcoholism and addiction to pain medication.

Usually, by the time a child is four years old, they can identify the emotions of being happy, sad, angry, and scared. Most addicted people find it difficult to recognize and acknowledge their feelings. Many times group sessions in a treatment center begin by asking each person in the group to indicate whether they are feeling glad, sad, mad, or scared.

I felt all of these emotions when I thought of Joe Ann’s release from treatment and her stay with me through the four months of her aftercare. I wanted not only to remember what I was feeling but also to let Joe Ann know.

Today You Are Coming Home

Today you are coming home.
What do I feel?
I feel glad -
Joyful, exhilerated, delighted, ecstatic.
I feel pride and love.
I celebrate your growth,
Your courage and your strength.
I live today with hope and faith.

Today you are coming home.
What do I feel?
I feel sad -
Aching, wounded, pained, hurt.
I am sorry to take you from this place
Where you have found community,
Where you found confession, 
And experienced God in humanity.

Today you are coming home.
What do I feel?
I feel mad -
Anger, rage, disgust, comtempt,
About the ignorance in the world
About judgment, intolerance, and stigma
That makes you fear to acknowledge triumph
And freedom
Over a disease our world will abet but not admit.

Today you are coming home.
What do I feel?
I feel scared -
Inadequate, hesitant, tense, frightened.
I fear the intrusion
Of the past and the future on today.
I am scared of my own fear that pushes me
From supportiveness toward control and
Protectiveness.

Today you are coming home. 
What do I feel?
I feel glad, sad, mad, and scared.
But most of all, I feel gratitude
That you are moving toward wholeness,
That I am blessed to stand beside you,
That both of us have grown and are growing,
That we walk this way together, with God and
Many others.

Today you are coming home.
Yea!
Yea for you!
Yea for me! 
Yea for God!
Yea for every drunk who is sober!

Joyce De Ridder
August 26, 1988
Categories
Relationships

From One Generation to the Next

We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.

Frankin Delano Roosevelt

It’s been more than eight weeks since I last posted on this blog. Between the last post and this one, I spent four weeks in Slovakia. The trip to Slovakia was my first time back in thirteen years and fourteen years since we, Joe Ann and I, moved back to the U.S.

I planned the trip because I had finished my memoir of our time there and I wanted to thank those Slovaks who partnered with us for twelve years and see what had happened in the lives of those we knew and loved over these intervening years.

Several days after returning to Michigan, I attended an afternoon reunion with more than half of my living cousins on my dad’s side of the family. The cousins are the children of five out of nine siblings, none of whom are living today. They came from Western Canada, Washington, and North Carolina, as well as several cities in Michigan, to spend a few hours together.

I am still processing the many experiences in Slovakia, but it is what I saw and heard that was similar to my time with cousins that has prompted my reflections today. The cousins attending the reunion are in a close age range to one another, and all of us spent some of the most significant years of our lives in the same church. I couldn’t help but notice how the legacy of family and church shaped our lives, was prominent in our memories, and seemed to direct so much of our conversation.

Time flew by too quickly, and we were reluctant to part ways. I left, feeling warmly enveloped in a soft, comforting blanket of familiarity. It made me realize how fortunate we are to possess what was bestowed upon us many years ago, a rarity in itself. However, out of the five families of aunts and uncles represented at the reunion, there was not a single family in which we grew up where the children, upon becoming adults, stayed in the same city and church. We moved into our different worlds.

Our biographies in our formative years intersected history at different times than our parents’, and our children’s lives are intersecting history in times we could never have imagined. Our parents could not construct our future any more than we can build the future for our children or grandchildren. Yet we had some of the same tools to help build a solid foundation for them. Growing up in families with two parents who love the Lord, being active and supported in a community of faith, is a major part of that foundation.

During my time in Slovakia, and particularly my visit to the church in Banská Bystrica, I felt immense gratitude and joy in witnessing the same legacy of faith and family passed from grandparents, who are my age or a little younger, to their children – now grown with children of their own – and to their grandchildren. The worlds of each of the generations have changed greatly as they have moved from under a totalitarian government and Marxist economy to a different system of government and economy. While I witnessed many visible changes, I saw what was most important in the church. Because they know the unchanging Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, each generation is prepared to meet their own time in a changing world.

I see and know that there are many from every generation among us who do not possess the same legacy as I and many of my family have been blessed with. Yet, as members within the larger family of God, we have the opportunity to invest in and help build a legacy for others and their children. May we all share the richness of our experience with those whose lives we touch.

Categories
Slovakia Memoir

My Memoir is Published

It was thirty years ago this month that I first stepped foot on Slovak soil. The Slovak Republic was just six months old. I was part of a group of 25 on a mission trip from Calvary Baptist Church in Holland, Michigan. Little did I know then that that trip would be the beginning of relationships that have spanned 30 years.

A year later I was on my second trip to Slovakia. This time with Joe Ann and the Calvary High School choir plus Pastor Grooms and a few more chaperones. The young people sang 20 times in 10 days, played basketball against Slovak high school teams, met with high school English classes, and had weekend concerts in churches and a city auditorium.

Then, in 1997, Joe Ann and I sold everything in the U.S. and moved to Slovakia at the invitation of the Baptist church in Banska Bystrica. Lord willing, I will again be in Banska Bystrica next week. Traveling with me will be one of those high school students from 1994.

This and the story that spanned the next twelve years is covered in the memoir that I completed this spring and has now been published. It is available on Amazon. Although the bulk of the book is my memory of our years in Slovakia, there is a backstory that tells how Joe Ann and I met and what happened in the ten years before we went to Slovakia. It concludes with an epilogue of the years after we returned to the U.S. until Joe Ann’s death last year.

I chose the three words, Courage to Change, in the title because it is part of the Serenity Prayer. The burden of our hearts from the beginning was to share the experience, strength, and hope that comes with recovery from addiction. However, for everyone who experienced God-enabled change during our years in Slovakia, including the two of us, it took courage to change those things in our lives that needed changing.

This fall the book will be translated into the Slovak language for those with whom we shared our lives who cannot read it in English.