Chris Fabry's Blog, page 7

Running for the Finish Line

People running for the finish line had a disorienting experience on April 15, 2013. Bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon. Smoke and flying metal will quickly reorient your life. The finish line changed. You can see it on the faces of those running, on those who were on the “sidelines,” because the sidelines became the point of focus.

Some ran for their lives. Others ran toward victims. Shirts used as tourniquets.

The finish line, which only seconds before had been so important, was unimportant. The ultimate goal, to finish this iconic race, faded because life was at stake.

Our prayers are with those who are helping, who are going through the crisis, who lost loved ones. Pray for believers in the middle of this, that they would be able to do their jobs and reach those around them.

So many questions come from an event like this. Who did it? Why? May God use the individual questions for our own hearts. Where are we running? Is the goal we’re headed for really the important finish line?

Eulogy for Beth

I was not there for the funeral and from my mother’s description of the crowd, there were few in attendance as people said goodbye to my cousin, Beth. Elizabeth was her real name, but we all called her Beth. Her mother, Zenith, would call her without the first “E,” yelling from the front porch, “Lizbeth!?”
One famous story passed through my childhood was of Beth walking toward the little white church across the street from her house, with a sad, twisted look on her face. My mother stopped her asked what was wrong. Beth replied, “Mommy made me all the whipped I could eat.”
Sometimes you need a mother who can make all the whipped cream you can eat.
Beth was eleven years older than me, so my brothers knew her better. They went to school with her and her younger brother, Ronnie. Ronnie was one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever known, but he was a recluse. He grew a beard and walked the highway with a stick and to people who didn’t know him, he seemed scary. He talked in a fast, staccato clip, and would show you pictures in an album he kept and retrieve minute details of the pictures and tell jokes with amazing linguistic ability. But he was strange. And he died like Beth did, mostly alone. I’ve often wondered about the family dynamics in that little house in Culloden.
Beth was full of laughter. Chubby cheeks and a smile and always chewing gum, and then you’d say something and out would come this belly laugh that shook the whole house. Beth did not care who heard her laugh.
She was doing a school project at some point, it must have been early in college, on child development and she came to our house and gave me a test. She sat at the dining room table and leaned down to eye level with me and asked questions, had me look at shapes and colors and more I can’t remember. I remember the smell of that glue. I remember her face. Her eyes. Looking inside me, drawing me out. And then her laugh and the way her face jiggled and her eyes sparkled and then she gathered her things and spoke in hushed tones to my mother about how bright I was, how intelligent, how verbal. I think Beth saw something in me and let me know it before anyone else. I think she knew I could hear. She was the first person who saw a spark, I guess. I’ll always love her for that.
Beth introduced me to my first Jewish friend. I don’t recall his name and at the time I did not know I was a Gentile. We didn’t have many Jewish families there in the holler. I really only knew two types of people, those who lived in Cabell County and those who lived in Putnam County. Our road divided the two. And there wasn’t that much difference, to tell you the truth.
But Beth brought this boy to us who, when he ate his peanut butter and jelly sandwich with my mother and me looking on, bowed his head and began to pray. Right there at the kitchen table with the linoleum floor and the cats climbing the brick outside the back door, waiting for scraps. It wasn’t as if we had never said grace before, but we usually weren’t as thankful for peanut butter and jelly as we were chicken and rice or one of the other dishes my mother would cook. Lunch was something we did ourselves, without God’s help, I guess. I can’t remember if he was wearing a yarmulke, but I think he was. And when he bowed his head, my mother looked at me and nodded, as if I should do the same, so I did. And when I opened my eyes he was staring at me and eating his sandwich as if I were the crazy one. He knew what he was praying about and I was keeping up appearances.
Beth also took me on a drive that, as I recall, was a dark and scary experience. I believe this other boy was with me in the back seat and she pulled up to a house in Huntington and went in, leaving us there to listen to Carole King sing about it being too late, baby. Blurred, shadowy images come back from that night, and that song. Every time I hear it I think of her.
She moved away, like many do, and found a husband and a new life in Illinois. But health problems caught up with her. Maybe it was the whipped cream. She had a son. Then grandchildren. But after her father died, she moved back to the little house across the street from the church. There was a lot of pain in her life.
I don’t know if she knew she was loved. I don’t know how alone she felt at the end. I only know it’s too late to tell her all these things. It’s too late, Now darlin’. It’s too late.

Firestone Book Club

I write in anonymity. It’s a perk of the desert. Very few people in Tucson know about my radio work or my literary pursuits. That’s okay. It helps me blend in at the Farmer’s Market and Target.
But something happened yesterday that makes me think things are changing.
No, I did not get invited to the Tucson Festival of Books. It’s even better.
Two weeks ago I bought four new tires at a Firestone location 40 minutes away. This is another reason I live in anonymity, I live 40 minutes from civilization.
Yesterday I discovered a bubble on the right front tire. It looked like a mouse had moved in next to the rim and something inside said, not good. I Googled it and sure enough the experts said it needed to be replaced.
I called Firestone and took it in Saturday afternoon, bringing along a manuscript and a couple of notebooks to work on a writing project. Bill and Joey were at the desk and Joey followed me outside to inspect my mouse.
I estimate Joey to be early 30s. He talks fast. Very sharp. He knows a lot about tires, but he also seems aware of people and their needs. Inquisitive. While I was there a woman from the gas station nearby was having trouble with a pump and Joey went outside to help her. He reset a young man’s car radio after a new battery was installed. I’ve heard him on the phone explaining in painful detail about car problems and what could happen if those problems aren’t fixed. Usually he’s talking to me.
“Funny thing happened the other day,” Joey said as we walked to my car. “A guy came in from Indiana to get some work done and he sat down in the waiting area to read a book. And I looked on the back of it and there was a picture of you.”
I smiled and wondered if he was inquisitive enough to remember the title.
“It was called Not In The Heart. I told him, ‘That’s one of my customers!’”
I nodded and smiled. And then he inspected the mouse and ran his hand over it. “Yeah, you need a new tire. We’ll get that done right away.”
I handed him the keys and asked how much an oil change would be. And I’d bought the lifetime alignment, so I had him do all three. Then I headed for a restaurant where I could spread out my material and wrap my head around my manuscript. (The lady in Arby’s had not heard of me.)
When I returned, Bill said, “Joey brought this book over to me and pointed at the picture and said, ‘That’s him. That’s the guy who comes in here.’”
I smiled and nodded.
“So how many books have you written?” Joey said.
I told him and his jaw dropped. Then I gave him the line about how many kids I have and how most writers can’t make enough to feed their families from their writing so they have to do something else as their main job, blah, blah, blah. Writing is like digging a trench or fixing tires, really. It’s just what I do. It’s why I show us during sales.
I told Bill and Joey I would bring them a copy of Not In The Heart. Maybe they’ll start the first Firestone Book Club.  

The Story of Kristen

This is from guest blogger, Andrea Fabry.


When Dreams Come TrueWhen we left our home in October 2008, Kristen was a high school freshman, filled with dreams of starring in a high school musical. When recovery became harder than expected, we decided to skip high school completely.

Kristen was our seizure child. She was diagnosed with complex partial disorder six months after moving into our Colorado home. We found her the night of her first seizure standing in a closet, fixated on a certain area of the ceiling. Eight years later our first-grade son would point to this exact location, asking about the water marks. (This haunting memory is detailed in this previous post.)

We immediately put Kristen on seizure medications. We experimented with Trileptal, Depakote, Keppra, Topomax, and Lamictal over the years and watched as she became fatigued and less verbal, struggling with handwriting and cognitive function. Never once did we consider the cause of her seizures. The first time I read any medical expert suggesting we look at the cause was two years after we left our home, in Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride's book  Gut and Psychology Syndrome .

The majority of epilepsy, particularly in children, is classified as idiopathic, which is a medical term meaning 'we have no idea what causes it.'

Campbell-McBride lists the vitamin deficiencies and multiple side effects that accompany seizure medication, making the point that:

Anti-epileptic drugs work by suppressing brain activity: they neither cure the condition, nor do they prevent susceptibility to seizures . . . due to suppression of the brain activity, these children are not able to learn well, they do not do well academically or socially and their personality changes. I have lost count of the loving parents who described their child as a ‘zombie’ due to anti-epileptic medication.(p. 78)

I would add my name to the list as we put Kristen on a 504 plan with our school district simply to allow her to take a nap or rest each day at school. We tried to take her off medication once in those seven years, but the seizure activity quickly returned.

In her chapter on epilepsy, Campbell-McBride discusses the history of seizure management which, prior to the discovery of anticonvulsant medication, relied strictly on diet. Hippocrates treated epilepsy with fasting. The ketogenic diet,developed in the 1920s at the Mayo Clinic, led to a 95 percent seizure control success rate with a 60 percent cure rate. The ketogenic diet provides a 4:1 ratio of fat to the combined weight of carbohydrate and protein, which is called a ketogenic ratio. The reason the diet works remains a mystery; however, according to Campbell-McBride:

It appears that ketone bodies are just used by the brain as an energy source while the body is dealing with the real cause of the seizures . . . By severely restricting carbohydrates in the diet the activity of pathogens in the body is also severely restricted.

When we connected the toxicity of our home with the health of our family, including Kristen's seizures, in the spring of 2008, we took a chance and weaned Kristen off her seizure medication. As far as we know, she remains seizure-free. Little did we know we would one day embrace a diet similar to the ketogenic.

When our detox began in full force in 2009, Kristen jumped on board with all of our kids. One of her numerous symptoms included severe knee pain which hampered her desire to run and walk. Acupuncture helped, but the severity of the condition remained a mystery.

One day I read about the health issues associated with root canals. Kristen had a root canal done on an upper front tooth after tripping during seventh-grade track. The article explained the bacterial "goo" that gathers in the dead tissue, draining the individual's immune system. Another article described the connection between this particular tooth and knee pain. With Kristen's blessing her front tooth was removed in the spring of 2011. I have written in this previous post about the incredible benefits Kristen experienced.

Her knee pain improved, but her anxiety, verbal challenges, chemical sensitivity, and chronic fatigue remained. She completed her GED with the help of a tutor in the spring of 2011 and enrolled part-time at our local community college.

Kristen kept up through Facebook with the parade of musicals performed at her former high school and continued to mourn the loss of her dream. I felt her loss and pain on a daily basis. Would it have been better to stay in Colorado? Questions and doubts were my daily companions for many months and years after leaving our home.

I wondered how my kids would one day view our difficult decisions. Last fall, Kristen wrote an essay letting me know that deep down, kids know that sometimes parents do hard things for loving reasons.

About four years ago this coming October my mom did the bravest thing I have ever known anyone to do. She convinced my family to leave our belongings and everything in our five-story house behind. We moved out of our beautiful home and I don’t think anyone understood why. There was a lot of anger and my mom felt doubt and sadness. Yet she stayed strong. We left our home because it was infested with toxic mold. After two remediations that made all of our chronic symptoms worse she decided enough was enough. She moved us out . . .

Kristen went on to describe our numerous medical experiments that left us with a radical diet as our final option. Exhibiting wisdom beyond her years, Kristen wrote a paper for her English class linking toxic mold with the symptoms experienced by the main character in the classic short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper." (Read her paper here.)

Kristen took an acting class at the college and began voice training in earnest. She began to think about auditioning for one of the college's musicals, but her ongoing fatigue and remaining health issues kept her focused on recovery as well as her photography.

Three months ago Kristen decided it was time. She prepared 24 bars of music and with overwhelming anxiety auditioned for Pima Community College's winter musical,  All Shook Up . She just wanted to get in, to be part of the cast. She would be happy to make the chorus. Or, dreaming big, she would perhaps get some small speaking role where she could display the talent that's been waiting all this time.

All Shook Up debuted Thursday night. I wept when Kristen walked onstage, and wept as she took her final bow. She wasn't in the chorus, she was the lead, playing "Natalie" and "Ed." Someone else saw what I have seen all along, and that is that dreams can come true. Not always the way we've seen or imagined.

Sometimes it's better.

Desert Snow

You can wait a lifetime for a moment like this.
Caught in time. Dropping from the cactus as the sun rises.
Snow like you’ve never seen it.
Snow in Colorado is expected. Snow amid the pines.
Snow in Chicago is a fait accompli. Gathering on roadsides as salt trucks pass.
Snow in the desert is…a gift. A touch from God on the backs of weary travelers.
The javelina have never experienced this. The quail are darting under white blankets. Children with sleds from distant lands ride over thinly covered rocks, dodging needles, giggling in the face of a certain Urgent Care visit.
Snow in the desert. 
Wear your shorts and zip up your coat.
Like life, it won't last long.
But it doesn't have to in order to make a memory.

On Reading a Book

Oh, okay. I guess I'll read this.

But it's not going to be as good as the last one.

Sigh.

I'm not into these characters.

This is nothing like his last book.

I wish I could find another one like that last book.

Oh well.

Well, this character is growing on me.

I guess I like him.

I'll keep reading.

At least a few more pages.

Oh, I can't wait to crawl in bed and find out where this is going.

Wow, I didn't expect that!

I can't wait to see how it ends.

I'm almost finished and I don't want it to end.

I'll never find another book like this.

Writaphobia

It is the fear of writing.
First you fear you have nothing to say.
Then you fear that what you have to say is not worth saying.
Then you fear you won’t be able to say what you want to say, even though there’s really no point in saying it.
Then you fear you’ve said nothing and said it poorly, but you take solace in the fact that no one is going to see this drivel.
Then you fear no one will care about what you have said poorly because you really do want someone else to see it.
Then you fear someone will criticize what you have said.
Then you fear no one will criticize what you have said and that everyone will like it and lap it up like thirsty dogs, but someday someone will see the truth and point it out to the rest and everyone will laugh and things will be even worse than if you had never tried to say anything in the first place.
Then you fear you don't have the right equipment and you need a new desk and a leather chair and a cat like Hemingway, and then more cats and you start looking at other writers and where they write and it makes you want to move to Havana.
Then you fear you won’t be able to say anything profound ever again.
Then you fear you've offended someone, which is probably true, and it makes you want to quit.
Then you fear you've offended no one and there's really no reason for you to be on the planet because writing is conflict and you have none, except all that boiling cauldron inside your head.
Then you fear you've missed a deadline.
Then you wake up and sit down and stare at the page and start writing again because there’s really nothing better to do than this even if you do it poorly. Because if you don’t, you’ll never really know.
And this is the breakthrough, when you reach the fear of not writing.

Day 1 - The 7 Days of Valentines

You want to show love to someone but there's so much pressure on February 14. What do you do? If you seize up, you won't seize the opportunity. Carpe Heartem. Seize the Valentine and spread the thoughtful giving over an entire week.

This is the shotgun approach, without the background check.

Too expensive, you say? Not really. Today, Day 1, create a simple card on the computer or a hand-made card that expresses your true feelings. Tell him/her to expect some tangible expression of love each day in the next seven days.

Anticipation will grow. If you have children, the kids will want to know what's going on. This morning, after I posted the first notice that the 7DoV is commencing, I had several of them ask, "So what did you get Mom today?"

I print a page that says which day it is and then print a clue about the gift she'll receive. At some point in the day she receives it.

The key is not to go buy 7 gifts and spring them. The key is to be thinking creatively. Ask the question, what would tell him/her that I've been thinking about him/her? What would show love in a specific way. I may let you in on some of the gifts I give in the next few days so check back.

Ten Principles of Decision Making

We talked with Kate McCord on Chris Fabry Live!, author of In the Land of Blue Burqas. She sold everything, gave up her lucrative job, and moved to Afghanistan. We came up with some principles for decision making from her experience that may help you. This is for when you feel God is telling you one thing and people around you are saying another.
Plug in with God and his Word. Stay plugged in.Be plugged in with the body of believers.Submit to God by submitting to your authorities. Don't just hear them out, listen to them.What are your motives? Are you making a decision because God is saying this or you want God to let you do what you want to do?Whatever the decision, you will need the support of people who love you. Don't abandon them or isolate yourself from that support.Give yourself time. If you are forced to make a decision on the spot without time to pray and process, wait.You must count the cost. Others can help you see the true cost of the decision you're making and help you see the implications for yourself and those you love.When you make a decision with your life as a child, you bring your parents along with you, whether you like it or not. Consider them while making the decision.This is not just about your life, it's really about GOD. Allow him to work. Give him the opportunity to do something big. If you take things by the horn and wrestle this decision to the ground, you don't allow him the time or place to affirm and approve the decision.Take things one step at a time. Have a plan for where you want to be down the road, but allow God to guide you through the doors he wants to open when he wants to open them.

Ten Principles of Decision-Making

We talked with Kate McCord on Chris Fabry Live!, author of In the Land of Blue Burqas. She sold everything, gave up her lucrative job, and moved to Afghanistan. We came up with some principles for decision-making from her experience that may help you. This is for when you feel God is telling you one thing and people around you are saying another.
Plug in with God and his Word. Stay plugged in.Be plugged in with the body of believers.Submit to God by submitting to your authorities. Don't just hear them out, listen to them.What are your motives? Are you making a decision because God is saying this or you want God to let you do what you want to do?Whatever the decision, you will need the support of people who love you. Don't abandon them or isolate yourself from that support.Give yourself time. If you are forced to make a decision on the spot without time to pray and process, wait.You must count the cost. Others can help you see the true cost of the decision you're making and help you see the implications for yourself and those you love.When you make a decision with your life as a child, you bring your parents along with you, whether you like it or not. Consider them while making the decision.This is not just about your life, it's really about GOD. Allow him to work. Give him the opportunity to do something big. If you take things by the horn and wrestle this decision to the ground, you don't allow him the time or place to affirm and approve the decision.Take things one step at a time. Have a plan for where you want to be down the road, but allow God to guide you through the doors he wants to open when he wants to open them.