Where I parked my pen last Sunday – ART IN THE PARK

Where I parked my pen last Sunday? Art in the Park! GIGATT’s very second art in the park last Sunday, across Angelus Temple, in the Park (no kidding) was another great success. Easels, paints, painters, writers, non-writers, food lovers, kids, adults, gathered together to make a colorful mix! Some artists were born (or maybe not), some artists were made. I just thoroughly enjoyed that pristine feeling of being under a tree, armed with nothing but a pen and a piece of paper.

Quoleshna was right at the middle of the action (to be known as queuey from now on). Sarah, always present, sat in quiet merriment, painting the town (literally). The Singles Small Group brought the food (there ya go! glorify God in your singleness!) which was well appreciated. We had chicken, coleslaw, mashed potatoes and sliced sweet bread. (Did I mention that we’re also health freaks? NOT.) Wait till the newest sub-group of GIGATT comes together. (hint. hint.) We’ll never eat fast food again. (never as in not for a while).

After some colorful fellowship, The Dreamweavers convened for the first writer’s meeting of the month. The assignment discussed was “My Letter to the Church.” The question: If you were Paul and you were to write a letter to the Church, what would you say? Everybody had something good to share. Jason, one of our new members deserves special mention for his very Paulinian contribution. (did i mention that we’re all new anyway) See his verbal prowess in the coming posts as I will be posting the homeworks of everyone. (those who are willing).

Writing exercises followed. I coerced, er, I mean asked to them to write from the perspective of an inanimate object. The point: empathizing with objects. No seriously, the point is: learning the idea of voice; developing the skill of writing the accurate voice of a created character. I also asked them to write about their favorite place. The point: establishing setting.

Homework for next next week to those who weren’t there or those who weren’t able to catch it: Write your very own parable.

Please feel free to comment with insights, the stuff you wrote during the meeting, smileys, or anything at all!

The Day I met Jesus by Lori Kass

This is Lori’s version of the “The Day I met Jesus” assignment. This is pure nonfiction — Lori did not only fancy meeting Jesus and create a fantasmic story about it. She actually did. In real life.
As I walked through the hospital corridor to the rehab area, I felt a mix of fear and excitement. It had been about awhile since I’d seen Jeremy. We had always partied together and hooked up. However, now it was going to be a whole different scenario.

During that time since I’d last seen him, both of us had started attending church again and were growing more and more tired of the bar scene and all of the emptiness it contained. Now the place where we were meeting was the furthest place from a bar.

As I passed all the equipment and machines, I wondered who I would see. Not only had Jeremy changed spiritually since I’d last seen him, but he had also had another monumental life-changing event take place. Three months earlier he had fallen while wrestling with a friend and hit his head on a nightstand, breaking his neck. He had the same injury as Christopher Reeves had.

My mind flashed back to the night I saw the sign about it in Godfather’s Pizza. I saw a sign about a fund for him and my hear had nearly stopped because I thought he had died. I called the number on the sign and found out he had broken his neck and had been hospitalized ever since. They gave me the number to the hospital and the next day I called it. His dad answered and told me Jeremy had just been removed from the ventilator that very day. I found out he had been paralyzed from the neck down and in a coma for awhile, then on a ventilator even after he woke up. He was just able to talk for the first time the day I called.

We visited and made plans to get together when he was moved back to rehab in our home state. He talked about God and church and shocked me with the changes he had made. The biggest shock was the “I love you” ending to the call. Shortly after that I went to a Billy Graham Crusade and a sweet little old lady sitting next to me walked me down to the altar call.

Now Jeremy and I were seeing each other again. I wasn’t sure what I had really done at the crusade or what had happened to him spiritually. I’d grown up in the Catholic church and was very religious, but I didn’t know yet that I had never really met Jesus himself.

Suddenly as I was walking I heard the familiar voice say, “Hi!”. Turning around, I was shocked at the very thin, frail young man on the rehab machine. This once buff, gorgeous man was now a mere shell of himself from the 3 months of paralysis. I had actually started walking right by him because I didn’t recognize him. At the end of his rehab session, I watched him take about 10 steps on parallel bars.

Later in the room I found out that those steps had been his first ones since the accident. I also found out that all the doctors had given him a diagnosis of quadraplegia with a prognosis of no chance for recovery. However, he and his family did not accept that diagnosis and told the doctors that Jesus would heal him.

Now I looked at him, defying all the odds. I realized I had just seen Jesus the healer – really met God for the first time…a God of power who forgives all and heals all. That was the start of a wild ride with Jesus for 11 years and counting!