Tag: addiction

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Day 30 of #VerseLove with Dr. Sarah Donovan of Oklahoma on a Slice of Life

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Today we wrap up #VerseLove 2024 at http://www.ethicalela.com with a prompt from Dr. Sarah Donovan, inviting us to choose a favorite prompt from the month and write another poem on that same prompt. I chose Stacey Joy’s In Our Mama’s Kitchens and Fran Haley’s The First Time. A very special thanks to Sarah Donovan and to Two Writing Teachers for giving us a space to write and grow and encourage each other. I look back as a preacher’s kid growing up in a household where one truly never knew which way the ball was coming, and today’s poem takes me back to the first time I knew I needed to hold on tight.

Pastorium Perils

late summer 1971 
in rural Reynolds, Georgia 
the land of peach trees
in their time of ripeness

Mama was pregnant with
my baby brother and
we were in the den
Mama Daddy and me
when

 ~~whoosh~~

in through the kitchen door
a naked girl with 
long wet hair
streaked through
our house holding a towel
screaming all the way 
down the hall
to my parents’ bedroom

locking the door
on her heels her stepdad
pounding and screaming
threatening her life
I recognized them from church

I was five
the girl was a teenager 
(with flapping boobs 
……and hair….down there?)
her stepdad was drunk

my mother clutched me 
carried me like a football
into my room
locked the door

then ran through 
the connecting bathroom

I followed, fearful 
to stay alone
crawled under their bed

Mama found the girl 
huddled in the bottom
of their closet
shaking
crying uncontrollably
wailing for help
Mama comforted her
clothed her
sat on the bed 
holding her

called the cops

we listened 
in fear for Dad
as we waited

those slurred screams 
of fury
are seared 
into my memory forever

she comes with me
or I’ll go get
my ruiner
and ruin you

then more voices,
the crash of a lamp
furniture slamming

handcuffs, arrest, 
police report
one prominent
family in ruins

exposed

it was the first time
I knew
growing up a preacher’s
kid would bring
a whole cast of 
characters always calling
mostly clothed

it was the first time
I saw a naked teenager
running for her life

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers

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More Serendipitous Steering Currents of Spirituality

Earlier this week, I wrote a t-shirt poem with my writing group, led by Britt Decker of Houston, Texas with a prompt and a challenge: find a t-shirt hanging in your closet and let it inspire your poem.

So I did. I’d purchased a shirt in November 2022 while in Anaheim for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Convention – royal blue in color, with a red heart and white lettering that says Your Story Matters. I took a picture of it and wrote a simple index card poem, 3×5, three lines with five syllables each: 

Your Story Matters

you're a child in God's
great universe so
your story matters

Last week, I shared a post about the serendipitous steering currents of spirituality – those moments of confirmation along the way when we realize fully, without a fraction of a percent of doubt, that He is on the path ahead of us, beside us, and behind us, directing our footsteps and assuring us that He is at work in our lives and all around us, holding the pen, guiding His children.

In my travels this week, I was given the unique opportunity to visit one of my daughters and her friends who attend a devotional and women’s Bible study each morning as part of the continuing recovery and restoration of their lives. They rise early, get coffee, and come together for a time of meditation and devotion. After about 20 minutes of quiet time, one opens in prayer, and then shares insights from the devotion and quiet time, along with an I AM statement.

My daughter opened the devotions on this particular day. She had read a devotion about being a child of God, and how being born into a family of Christians didn’t buy her salvation any more than someone born in a garage made that person an automobile. Her place in the family of God comes only through her belief in him, confession of her sins, and desire to follow Him. She shared her focus verses for the morning – John 1: 12-13.

We went around the table, each sharing our thoughts, and when the last woman shared, she talked about the power of our stories in shaping others and encouraging them.

After the closing prayer, I opened my blog post and showed my daughter the poem. “Did you write that today?” she asked.

“No, I wrote this earlier in the week, ” I explained.

I wish I had a picture of her expression – a perfect photo of the serendipitous steering currents of spirituality.