Before I post my #MemoirFest Prompts for each day, I like to go to Goodreads to see what other writers have said about that prompt, and normally, I find beautifully crafted and inspirational words. But when I looked at the quotes about school, I was a bit surprised, as I was reminded that School was not a wonderful haven for most people and that many people remember their time in school as that of an almost prison-like existence:
“Prison for the crime of puberty — that was how secondary school had seemed.”― David Brin, Earth
“You can drag my body to school but my spirit refuses to go.”― The Essential Calvin and Hobbes
“I won’t say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like “What I’m Going to be If I Grow Up”―“There’s always a bit of suspense about the particular way in which a given school year will get off to a bad start.”
― Frank Portman, King Dork Lenny Bruce
The list of similar sentiments is almost endless, and as I examined the quotes that enlightened me about how many people seemed to have detested school, I recalled an extremely important writing tip:
Don’t write what you think people want you to write. Don’t write what is flowery and pretty–just to be flowery and pretty. Don’t write things in an effort to be “liked” by the people who you want to “like” you. Do what the people above have done. Tell it like it is.
“CONJUGATE THIS:
I cut class, you cut class, he, she, it cuts class. We cut class, they cut class. We all cut class. I cannot say this in Spanish because I did not go to Spanish today. Gracias a dios. Hasta luego.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
I have recently finished watching Maid, which is an autobiographical series on Netflix. At times, the story of that protagonist’s life was so very bad that I could hardly continue watching, but I did.
And because Stephanie Land dared to tell the truth about her dismal life, she wrote herself into the position of being a New York Times Best Seller author.
Numerous memoir writers who have told their unpleasant life stories and have been rewarded for having done so, but many of my memoir writing students want to follow the example of my Great Aunt Mildred, who began writing about her mother in the following way:
“What is a mother? A mother is a very special person–a wife, a cook, a sister, a grandmother, a friend, a daughter, a doctor, a neighbor; and one who plans for the future and one who is a good listener. Abraham Lincoln said it well when he said, ‘No one is poor who has a Godly mother.’ Lincoln’s words exemplify the characteristics of….[this great aunt’s mother was my great grandmother. I knew the truth about her.]
My great aunt was born in about 1905, and “ladies” from that era often wrote in a flowery, fluffy way–a way that often bore little resemblance to the truth. In many ways, my aunt’s book of memoir is invaluable to me, but when I read her comments about her mother [who was my great grandmother], I chuckled. I remember that same woman as a withered, old crone, who dipped snuff and who was as mean as a snake. I remember her as always sitting in a wooden chair that was as rigid as she was. Like a Queen on her throne, she would sit, with a tin can in her hand. Not at all a scepter, the purpose of the tin can was to hold the spittal from my great grandmother’s snuff. As a child, I was always expected to kiss my great-grandmother when I came into her presence, but invariably, her lips dribbled with foul-smelling, tobacco-laced ooze, and stains from that ooze ran down the front of her stinky calico dress. That lady scared me to death. True, she never missed a Sunday at church but I’m not sure that church attendance makes a person Godly. Although I am certain that by saying this, I will offend several of my relatives, my great-grandmother was a terror, and that is the truth, as I remember it.
When writing, it is important to remain truthful. For one thing, flowery writing is repulsive to many readers now. But more importantly, it becomes very difficult to craft a strong and cohesive story, when the foundation of that story is shifting sand.
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”
#MemoirFest Day 5: Write about School but Keep it Real.
For me, school was enjoyable, and the prospect of buying new crayons and a new pad of paper for school was the highlight of my Augusts. I liked school, but I was usually the teacher’s pet. I remember the fall of my second-grade year when all the elementary children came to class dressed in their mothers’ best versions of homemade scarecrow suits, and we lined up to be scarecrows in a harvest parade. I was picked to be the head scarecrow. I never understood it, and quite honestly, it embarrassed me just a bit, but I think that my scarecrow status was more about the fact that the parade director was my mother’s cousin than it was about me.
And yet, my third-grade teacher gave me a brand new, hardcover copy of a junior biography of Louisa May Alcott. Again, that sort of embarrassed me, and I didn’t fully understand her attention at the time either, but soon after that, I began a phase of my of my life when this same teacher would send me out of class while the other children were learning to read. I wasn’t being punished. I never needed punishment in elementary school. In high school, I talked too much and was punished for that violation, but while I was in elementary school, I was doing everything humanly possible to be perfect. Yet, while the other kids were struggling in their reading circles, I was sent to sit alone in a dismal and almost empty library.
“Because we were a poor area, the school had a small budget and was unable to teach the second half of the alphabet.”
― George Carlin, Brain Droppings
But back to my brand new biography book. It was not a picture book. It was a chapter book, and that was the first hardcover book that I had ever owned. I lived in a house that was almost devoid of children’s books. There weren’t many books of any kind in my childhood home. When I brought my new biography home to live with me, I would run my hand across the rough grain of the cover, and I would allow my fingers to sink into the indentations made by the embossed letters of the title. I cherished that book, and I would caress it. It is little wonder that when I first became aware of the vast field of picture books, I was mesmerized by them.
I was an adult when I discovered picture books, and I was teaching in a rather exclusive Episcopal school in Mississippi. During that period of my life, I spent all of my planning periods in that school’s fabulously stocked library, and I literally read every picture book on the shelves. That library set the course for the rest of my life, and for my birthday one year, that school’s librarian gave me my first hardcover picture book. I cherished that book, too, and I determined that one day, I would write picture books. That was during the 1980s, and in 2022, my debut picture book, The Donkey’s Song, will be published by Doubleday for Young Readers, which is an imprint of Penguin Random House. When I say that having my debut book published is a dream come true, I mean it.
In regards to today’s Writing Prompt, which is to Write about School, allow me to share something that Anne Lamott wrote about school.
“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Anne Lamott’s comment about school is neither positive or negative about school, it is more of a lesson for life. When you write memoir, you do not need to pronounce judgment on your past. You can do what Anne Lamott has done in the above passage, you can merely chronicle moments as you remember them. But there is nothing wrong with being critical of the things that you remember. That is certainly better than writing a sugary, flowery bit of fluff that is more about how you wish that things were than it is about the way that things actually were. In my opinion, one of the hallmarks of any great book of memoir is its honesty. When writing about your school. be real, and if you hated school, let it fly:
“It’s easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like someone in middle school
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
“Everything I need to know… I learned in kindergarten.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Kim Harrison
“I said school starts tomorrow. I didn’t say I was going to be there.”
― Kim Harrison
“I’m the girl nobody knows until she commits suicide. Then suddenly everyone had a class with her.”
― Tom Leveen, Party
“I’ll be famous one day, but for now I’m stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons.” – Greg Heffley,”
― Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
― Albert Einstein
Whether you believe in God or not, this message is a “must-read”!!
Throughout history, we can see how we have been slowly conditioned to come to this point where we are on the verge of a cashless society. Did you know that the Bible foretold of this event almost 2,000 years ago?
In the book of Revelation 13:16-18, we read,
“He (the false prophet who deceives many by his miracles–Revelation 19:20) causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.”
Referring to the last generation, this could only be speaking of a cashless society. Why? Revelation 13:17 tells us that we cannot buy or sell unless we receive the mark of the beast. If physical money was still in use, we could buy or sell with one another without receiving the mark. This would contradict scripture that states we need the mark to buy or sell!
These verses could not be referring to something purely spiritual as scripture references two physical locations (our right hand or forehead) stating the mark will be on one “OR” the other. If this mark was purely spiritual, it would indicate both places, not one OR the other.
This is where it comes together. It is shocking how accurate the Bible is concerning the implantable RFID microchip. These are notes from a man named Carl Sanders who worked with a team of engineers to help develop this RFID chip
“Carl Sanders sat in seventeen New World Order meetings with heads-of-state officials such as Henry Kissinger and Bob Gates of the C.I.A. to discuss plans on how to bring about this one-world system. The government commissioned Carl Sanders to design a microchip for identifying and controlling the peoples of the world—a microchip that could be inserted under the skin with a hypodermic needle (a quick, convenient method that would be gradually accepted by society).
Carl Sanders, with a team of engineers behind him, with U.S. grant monies supplied by tax dollars, took on this project and designed a microchip that is powered by a lithium battery, rechargeable through the temperature changes in our skin. Without the knowledge of the Bible (Brother Sanders was not a Christian at the time), these engineers spent one-and-a-half-million dollars doing research on the best and most convenient place to have the microchip inserted.
Guess what? These researchers found that the forehead and the back of the hand (the two places the Bible says the mark will go) are not just the most convenient places, but are also the only viable places for rapid, consistent temperature changes in the skin to recharge the lithium battery. The microchip is approximately seven millimeters in length, .75 millimeters in diameter, about the size of a grain of rice. It is capable of storing pages upon pages of information about you. All your general history, work history, criminal record, health history, and financial data can be stored on this chip.
Brother Sanders believes that this microchip, which he regretfully helped design, is the “mark” spoken about in Revelation 13:16–18. The original Greek word for “mark” is “charagma,” which means a “scratch or etching.” It is also interesting to note that the number 666 is actually a word in the original Greek. The word is “chi xi stigma,” with the last part, “stigma,” also meaning “to stick or prick.” Carl believes this is referring to a hypodermic needle when they poke into the skin to inject the microchip.”
Mr. Sanders asked a doctor what would happen if the lithium contained within the RFID microchip leaked into the body. The doctor replied by saying a terrible sore would appear in that location. This is what the book of Revelation says:
“And the first (angel) went, and poured out his vial on the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore on the men which had the mark of the beast, and on them which worshipped his image” (Revelation 16:2).
You can read more about it here–and to also understand the mystery behind the number 666: https://2ruth.org/rfid-mark-of-the-beast-666-revealed/
The third angel’s warning in Revelation 14:9-11 states,
“Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.'”
“The coming of the lawless one (the Antichrist) is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)”
Who is Barack Obama, and why is he still involved in politics?
So what’s in the name? The meaning of someone’s name can say a lot about a person. God throughout history has given names to people that have a specific meaning tied to their lives. How about the name Barack Obama? Let us take a look at what may be hiding beneath the surface.
Jesus says in Luke 10:18, “…I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”
The Hebrew Strongs word (H1299) for “lightning”: “bârâq” (baw-rawk)
In Isaiah chapter 14, verse 14, we read about Lucifer (Satan) saying in his heart:
“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.”
In the verses in Isaiah that refer directly to Lucifer, several times it mentions him falling from the heights or the heavens. The Hebrew word for the heights or heavens used here is Hebrew Strongs 1116: “bamah”–Pronounced (bam-maw’)
In Hebrew, the letter “Waw” or “Vav” is often transliterated as a “U” or “O,” and it is primarily used as a conjunction to join concepts together. So to join in Hebrew poetry the concept of lightning (Baraq) and a high place like heaven or the heights of heaven (Bam-Maw), the letter “U” or “O” would be used. So, Baraq “O” Bam-Maw or Baraq “U” Bam-Maw in Hebrew poetry similar to the style written in Isaiah, would translate literally to “Lightning from the heights.” The word “Satan” in Hebrew is a direct translation, therefore “Satan.”
So when Jesus told His disciples in Luke 10:18 that He beheld Satan fall like lightning from heaven, if this were to be spoken by a Jewish Rabbi today influenced by the poetry in the book of Isaiah, he would say these words in Hebrew–the words of Jesus in Luke 10:18 as, and I saw Satan as Baraq O Bam-Maw.
The names of both of Obama’s daughters are Malia and Natasha. If we were to write those names backward (the devil does things in reverse) we would get “ailam ahsatan”. Now if we remove the letters that spell “Alah” (Allah being the false god of Islam), we get “I am Satan”. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Obama’s campaign logo when he ran in 2008 was a sun over the horizon in the west, with the landscape as the flag of the United States. In Islam, they have their own messiah that they are waiting for called the 12th Imam, or the Mahdi (the Antichrist of the Bible), and one prophecy concerning this man’s appearance is the sun rising in the west.
“Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people— saying with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.'” (Revelation 14:6-7)
Why have the words of Jesus in His Gospel accounts regarding His death, burial, and resurrection, been translated into over 3,000 languages, and nothing comes close (the Quran about 110 languages)? Because the same Spirit of God (YHVH) who created all people likewise transcends all people; therefore the power of His Word is not limited by people; while all other religions are man-made, therefore they tend to primarily stay within their own culture. The same God who speaks to all people through His creation of the heavens and earth that draws all people around the world likewise has sent His Word to the ends of the earth so that we may come to personally know Him to be saved in spirit and in truth through His Son Jesus Christ.
Jesus stands alone among the other religions that say to rightly weigh the scales of good and evil and to make sure you have done more good than bad in this life. Is this how we conduct ourselves justly in a court of law? Bearing the image of God, is this how we project this image into reality?
Our good works cannot save us. If we step before a judge, being guilty of a crime, the judge will not judge us by the good we have done, but rather by the crimes we have committed. If we as fallen humanity, created in God’s image, pose this type of justice, how much more a perfect, righteous, and Holy God?
God has brought down His moral laws through the 10 commandments given to Moses at Mt. Siani. These laws were not given so we may be justified, but rather that we may see the need for a savior. They are the mirror of God’s character of what He has written in our hearts, with our conscious bearing witness that we know that it is wrong to steal, lie, dishonor our parents, murder, and so forth.
We can try and follow the moral laws of the 10 commandments, but we will never catch up to them to be justified before a Holy God. That same word of the law given to Moses became flesh about 2,000 years ago in the body of Jesus Christ. He came to be our justification by fulfilling the law, living a sinless perfect life that only God could fulfill.
The gap between us and the law can never be reconciled by our own merit, but the arm of Jesus is stretched out by the grace and mercy of God. And if we are to grab on, through faith in Him, He will pull us up being the one to justify us. As in the court of law, if someone steps in and pays our fine, even though we are guilty, the judge can do what is legal and just and let us go free. That is what Jesus did almost 2,000 years ago on the cross. It was a legal transaction being fulfilled in the spiritual realm by the shedding of His blood with His last word’s on the cross crying out, “It is finished!” (John 19:30).
For God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23). This is why in Isaiah chapter 53, where it speaks of the coming Messiah and His soul being a sacrifice for our sins, why it says it pleased God to crush His only begotten Son.
This is because the wrath that we deserve was justified by being poured out upon His Son. If that wrath was poured out on us, we would all perish to hell forever. God created a way of escape by pouring it out on His Son whose soul could not be left in Hades but was raised and seated at the right hand of God in power.
So now when we put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14), where God no longer sees the person who deserves His wrath, but rather the glorious image of His perfect Son dwelling in us, justifying us as if we received the wrath we deserve, making a way of escape from the curse of death; now being conformed into the image of the heavenly man walking in a new nature, and no longer in the image of the fallen man Adam.
Now what we must do is repent and put our trust and faith in the savior, confessing and forsaking our sins, and to receive His Holy Spirit that we may be born again (for Jesus says we must be born again to see and enter the Kingdom of God in John chapter 3). This is not just head knowledge of believing in Jesus, but rather receiving His words, taking them to heart, so that we may truly be transformed into the image of God. Where we no longer live to practice sin, but rather turn from our sins and practice righteousness through faith in Him in obedience to His Word by reading the Bible.
Our works cannot save us, but they can condemn us; it is not that we earn our way into everlasting life, but that we obey our Lord Jesus Christ:
Jesus says,
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matthew 7:21-23)
“And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” (Hebrews 5:9)
“Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’
Then He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ And He said to me, ‘Write, for these words are true and faithful.’
And He said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'” (Revelation 21:1-8)